If you’re looking for an easy to grow vegetable then you can’t really go wrong with growing your own beans! In this post you will find out why you should grow beans and how to grow beans in your garden for a long season harvest.
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Why You Should Grow Beans?
Beans are a really easy and beautiful crop to grow and a staple food which any budding homesteader or self-reliant gardener should be growing! Beans will feed you (and your family) throughout the entire year and are a great crop for beginners to try and grow! Some varieties of beans are even grown as high protein fodder crops for livestock and are known as tic beans, cattle beans, field beans and horse beans.
I’m a particular fan of drying beans because I love to make soups and stews and using beans is a great way to add extra protein and vegetables in my family’s meals. Beans are quite possibly one of my favorite vegetables and growing beans is something I look forward to every year. I love all the colors, tastes and textures that you can grow especially with heirloom varieties which are available for any backyard gardener.
Beans are a member of the legumes family which means that they fix nitrogen in the soil. Beans are typically one of the first crops grown in traditional crop rotation this is because they provide food in the form of nitrogen in the soil for the other plants.
Soil
To grow beans, you need to have the right soil. Beans like a moist soil and benefit greatly from compost being added to the planting area in fall or early spring. They don’t require any additional fertilizer being added during the growing season but it is a good idea when you grow beans to add plenty of mulch around the soil underneath the stems to help keep to soil moist.
Types Of Beans To Grow
There are many different types of beans available and some common types include:
- Lima
- Fava or broad
- Pole or climbing
- Bush or dwarf
- French
- Runner
- Italian
- Asian
When To Sow Beans
Most beans are a tender annuals and do not do well with frost. It is best to sow beans direct in the soil where you want them to grow after all risk of frost has passed. If you are looking for beans 2-4 weeks earlier in the season, sow the beans under the protection of a cloche
However, there are some exceptions to the rules and fava beans (broad beans) in areas with mild winters, like the UK can have broad beans sown in the garden bed in autumn without any frost protection. These beans will form an early spring crop growing stout and tall without support. Many of the winters here in the USA are a bit too cold but fava beans are one of the first crops appearing in my greenhouse beds here in my zone 7a garden so I would encourage you to try sowing them in early spring under some frost protection.
After Care Of Growing Beans
Be sure to mulch underneath your plants well to keep the roots cool and retain moisture. Water beans deeply at least once a week, more if you are in a dry climate.
Climbing beans will need gentle coaxing onto a trellis or poles
Pick fresh eating, mature beans regularly to keep them productive. Typically this means when green beans are the thickness of a pencil. If you leave it too late the pods may become too big and stringy.
Drying beans should be left on the vine for the pods to dry then shelled.
Bean Growing Problems
Here are some common problems you might experience growing beans:
- Beans can stop flowering in high summer heat and this may be because the roots are too warm. Water the plants deeply then cover the soil below with plenty of organic mulch.
- Young bean seedlings are beloved by slugs and snails in the garden. You can lure them away with a beer trap, just be sure to empty it and refresh it regularly or try crushed eggshell and diatomaceous earth
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- Mexican Bean Beetles will eat the leaves, flowers and pods. Pick them off and drown them in a bucket of soapy water as you find them or try a natural bug spray.
- Crickets and grasshoppers will eat the leaves, flowers and pods of your growing beans. Encourage more birds to the garden, pick them off as you find them (chickens love ’em) or drown them in soapy water. Natural bug spray may also help.
- Mosaic Virus can be contracted by the plants. If you see the symptoms of the virus on your plants, remove the infected plants and do not compost them. Burn them or place in the municipal garbage.
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Grow Beans For The Year
To be able to keep yourself in beans throughout the year, you need to grow different varieties which mature at different times. You would want to grow fava beans early in the season then as daytime temperatures are consistently warm, sow lima beans. A few weeks later you would want to be sowing your bush, dwarf or French beans as well as your pole beans. The bush beans will produce before the pole beans and a successional sowing of bush beans every 2 weeks will keep you in fresh beans throughout the summer. Many of the drying or soup beans are climbing and will need a trellis
Beans in flower look just lovely in the vegetable garden and I enjoy growing lots of them for ornamental as well as productive reasons.
Varieties which I am growing this year:
- Monachelle di Trevio Pole Bean
- Mayflower Pole
- Borlotti Climbing
- Good Mother Stallard Pole
- Black Turtle Bush
- Hutterite Soup Bush
- Hidatsa Red Indian Half Runner
- Henderson’s Bush Lima
- Windsor Broad (Fava)
- Lentil Bean Pole
- Ojo de Cabra Pole
- Mountaineer Half Runner
- Painted Lady Runner
- Kurzer’s Calico Traveler Lima
- Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole
- Kentucky Wonder Pole
- Burgundy Bush
I really like my beans! Painted Lady runner beans and the Kentucky Wonder are for fresh eating pole beans and both preserve well, all of the other pole beans are for drying. The only fresh eating bush bean I’m planting this year is Burgundy Bush which grew really well last year. The other bush beans are also for drying. The broad (fava) beans and lima beans are for fresh eating in late spring, early summer.
Preserving Beans
To ensure you have beans throughout winter make use of blanching and freezing bags of fresh eating beans like runner beans, French beans, Italian beans and bush beans. Using a FoodSaver
A good supply of beans will keep you going throughout winter making a great addition to soups, stews and casseroles or as a green vegetable side to Sunday roast dinners or, as the good old English favorite during the week, beans on toast!
In summary, try to grow a variety of beans that mature throughout the season to give you a longer harvest. Sow bush beans every 2 weeks to keep your harvest going and keep the roots well watered and mulched. Fresh eating beans should be picked regularly to keep them productive whilst drying beans are left on the vine for the pods to dry and become crispy.
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