Your questions made me chuckle! Good ones, but you're right-- it is hard to find all of the answers to your questions in one place if you don't already know the answers! So hopefully we can help. Answers in blue.
This is my question, as I start planning next year's garden I find references to pole beans, bush beans, dried beans, filet beans, mung beans, fava beans... but I can't find any guide as to the differences..
What you have here is a bunch of terms describing different characteristics of beans, and some different sorts of beans. As you say, pole vs. bush describes the "habit" of the whole plants-- whether or not to grows basically as a vining plant, or as a bush. Although you can let pole beans wander all over the ground, typically they are staked in some way or otherwise encouraged to grow upward. Filet beans are a kind, a variety of bean; filet refers to the thin green bean and is commonly called a French green bean-- you eat the pod before the beans (the seeds) have developed. Mung beans are another "green bean" but it is the bean inside the pod that's typically eaten. Fava or broad Winsor beans are only distantly related to the classic green bean. Here again you eat the bean inside the pod (which is actually inside two pods.
Okay, I know pole beans are the kind that climb a pole - like Scarlet Runners - but do you eat the beans IN the pod or do you throw the pod away?
Leaving fava beans aside, you can pretty much eat any bean at any time. But of course, some taste better at different stages than others. Many beans that are grown for the bean-- again, the seed inside the pod-- can be eaten before the bean matures, like a classic green bean. "Pole bean" can refer to either a "fresh bean" (the kind you eat before the seed develops) or a "dried bean".
Bush beans are shrubby, right? Same question as above.
Dried beans... must be called that because they are good for drying, but can you eat them fresh? Is the pod edible?
Yes. Bean seeds develop inside a seed pod. As above, some varieties are grown to eat the pod & all (think about snap peas-- same idea), and some, "dried beans" are grown to eat just the bean. (But see above, you can eat immature pods of dried beans.) You can eat "dried beans" any time after the seeds develop. So, you can pick for example, black eyed peas (really a bean) when the peas are fresh, meaning they haven't dried out. You can freeze them fresh-- they'll be green not brown. Or you can wait until the pods have dried out, and the seeds inside the pods have changed from green to brown. In this case, you'd store them dry (just like a bag of dried beans you'd buy at the store).
Filet? Are those the "French Cut Green Beans" one gets frozen or tinned?
How do you know when bean are ready? I picked the Italian ones when I just couldn't stand it anymore and had to taste them! LOL!!
This depends on what variety of beans you have, and when you want to eat them. If you have classic green beans, you pick them before the seeds inside the pod can be felt when you run your fingers along the pod. If you have dried beans-- either fresh or really dried-- you pick them when you can feel the seeds inside, and when the pod seems to have filled out.
About the pods-- don't forget to compost the pods if you are only eating the seeds!!
Good luck! You can't really make too many mistakes with beans!
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"No crime is involved in plagiarizing nature's ways" (Edward H. Faulkner, 1943, "Plowman's Folly," University of Oklahoma Press).
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