If we're going to talk French beans: (love talking beans
)
My absolute favourite and always reliable and early
Cosse Violette seriously suffered in the wilting heat - I hardly got any.
I was expecting
Marvel of Venice to crop late August/September (as previous experience), but it grew extremely quickly and we had loads in July. Fizzled earlier than expected though. It's an Italian so it likes heat.
Emperor of Russia. DFB (from the seed share) did dismally - I've read very good reports of it. No doubt it was the extreme weather that had this effect. I'll have to try another season.
Best cropper of all (same last year actually in a most cool July/Aug) was semi-climbing
Ice crystal Wax (originally from HSL), absolutely loves heat and is still cropping now. You only need two of three plants to feed a couple of people every other day. I find this one an excellent shape and size for modern dishes with a kind of Asian inspiration: Japanese soupy types and Chinese stir fries. I gave seeds out for this years ago so I am wondering if anyone else grows it? Thing is, if you let it develop beans (which I expect seed savers would) it only grows as a dwarf, but if you pick and keep picking it goes on all summer - no kidding. It fans out after the dwarf stage and reaches about 4.5 feet. A great one for a small space, I reckon.