'Cobra' is an extremely reliable climbing French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) well known in Ireland. Found often in kitchen and market gardens here due to its consistent heavy crops. It produces well both inside an outside, even producing a great crop and ripening seed outside in the dismal 2024 summer. The beans are stringless, long (up to 20cm) and round.
Climbing French beans are a very productive use of space. They can be grown up a trellis net, string lines or bamboo canes and will climb to around 170cm. Don't worry when you have a glut. They are easy to blanch and freeze or if you don't get around to that you can let the beans dry and use them like any dry beans. Cobra is a black seeded variety.
They can be sown directly in the soil when risk of frost has passed. I plant them in May outside as I don't see any advantage to pushing them too early as they will develop very slowly until the soil warms up anyways. You can make another sowing a few weeks later to extend the cropping period.
