Peas and Beans

Hi,
as next year is going to be my first growing year id like to try peas and beans that we like to eat.
we love butter beans and kidney beans and with peas the kind you pod and eat that are sweet.
i have never grown beans/peas so any advise is welcome.
i followed a butter bean thread and it went all over the place without a real sound answer.

thanks

I find that most peas taste great if picked young and fresh. The trick is to do successional sowings so that you can have several months supply of fresh peas to just pick and eat straight from the plant. For peas in bulk go to the freezer cabinets of the supermarket.

Butter beans aka lima beans like a warm climate and are not always reliable in the UK.

You could use any climbing bean and leave it to mature before drying and storing and it would taste very similar.

There's a runner bean called "White Lady" (I think it is) that, if left for the beans to mature, develops large white seeds that look exactly like "butter beans". According to the packet they can be eaten (once cooked  ) as butter beans.

I'm still waiting to try this..... patiently hoping!! 

last year I experimented with sowing supermarket dried kidney beans and amazingly got a lovely little crop    The biggest downside were the slug and snail damage to the young plants but they recovered well.  Borlotti beans are a french dwarf variety and Blue Lake are a climbing bean (need poles) - leave the seeds to mature and dry in the pods to harvest at the end of the season, remove the seeds and dry well before storing and use for soups, stews and baked beans.  If cooking red kidney beans, don't forget to soak overnight and boil the beans for a minimum of 10 minutes to destroy the toxin haemaglutin before using in recipes 

What about broad beans - when picked young, the beans are lovely and tender and nothing like the big grey chewy things you used to see in frozen mix veg!

This year I'm growing pea bean (lovely red/white bicoloured seeds) but I may have left the sowing a bit late ... tons of flowers and very few pods at the moment so I can't say how they turn out or what they taste like.

This year I grew Waverex (petit pois)  The only downside I found is that the pods are a bit fiddly to get the peas out (unlike other pea varieties which are much easier - unfortunately more peas got eaten raw than put in the pot  )  And how about growing mangetout and sugar snap - I particularly liked Sugar Ann - which can be eaten raw and freeze well (also no need to pod so reduces preparation time)  When growing peas it might be an idea to put pea sticks (twiggy sticks), netting or string between canes for the plants to grasp

thanks for the replies,
what about chick peas can they be grown?