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Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Green Beans
Growing
- Mulch soil around bean plants to retain moisture; make sure that it is well-drained. Beans have shallow roots, so mulch keeps them cool.
- Water regularly, about 2 inches per square foot per week. If you do not keep beans well watered, they will stop flowering. Water on sunny days so that foliage will not remain soaked, which could encourage disease.
- If necessary, begin fertilizing after heavy bloom and the set of pods. Avoid using high-nitrogen fertilizer, or you will get lush foliage and few beans. A side dressing of compost or aged manure halfway through the growing season is a good alternative to liquid fertilizer.
- Weed diligently but carefully to avoid disturbing the beans鈥 roots.
- Pinch off the tops of pole bean vines when they reach the top of the support. This will force them to put energy into producing more pods instead.
- In high heat, use row covers over young plants; hot weather can cause blossoms to drop from plants, reducing the harvest.
Growing Green Beans in Containers
You can also grow green beans in containers! An 8-inch-deep, 8-inch-wide container will hold one bush plant, while a 5-gallon pot will hold up to three bush or pole plants. For pole beans, plan to provide support in or immediately outside of the container. Fill the container with potting mix and rich compost.
Beans grow best when direct-seeded (not transplanted) into the soil, whether it鈥檚 in a container or the ground. After all danger of frost has passed, sow into warm (55掳F or higher), moist soil. Put two beans into each hole between 1 and 11鈦2 inches deep. Eliminate the weaker one after germination by cutting the stem. (Do not allow two plants to coexist in one hole; neither will thrive.)
To care for your container of green beans, provide 6 to 8 hours of sun per day. Whenever the soil is dry, water to a depth of 1 to 2 inches. Fertilize with a low-nitrogen formula (5-10-10) diluted to half-strength to avoid excess foliage growth. Apply at planting time and when plants begin to flower.
Catherine Boeckmann
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Good idea! You should have no trouble saving your seeds. Read the advice here (and click through to the first link in this page, as well): /content/how-save-vegetable-seeds-seed-saving-guide
For a visual how-to, here’s a video: /video/saving-seed-how-save-your-own-seed-tomatoes-peppers-beans-etc
We hope this helps!
All I read tells me that bush beans don't need support, but every year we get a day of high winds that beat down the beans & crack some of the plants. Do you have any suggestions for some sort of support that might work?
It’s true that sometimes bush beans might lean, if as you suggest the wind blows or (in my experience) the plant are too crowded. You could try a couple of things: mulch to give the plant stems more support. We’ve seen pencil-thin bamboo sticks attached to stems with tomato ties. You might put light rope/string snug (but not tight) to the stems of several plants in a row (tie the string to a stake at either end). If you can count on the wind coming every year, you might also try wind breaks鈥攁 wall of something that will allow wind to pass through but as a structure will break the force of it, such as lattice or a wattle fence.
I've grown pole beans for 4-5 years, and I have never seen this behavior in bean plants before!This year it's Kentucky Blue, and I have a bumper crop of tiny beans, with a few normal sized mixed in! We did have a cold June, but we've had really hot temps in July and now August. (85-100*) On the days when the forecast was for the 100's, I have been giving them extra water in the AM. When planted, I used organic stakes of slow release fertilizer, and I don't have an unusual abundance of leaves. I live in a community that gets some effect from the marine layer, mostly in the form of wind off of the San Francisco fog. I am about 25 miles inland from San Francisco. Ideas?
It has been an odd year in many places, largely du to the weather. It may be too hot for the beans to mature properly. Too high heat can effectively stifle these and a few other plants. Kentucky Blues in particular are sensitive to cold鈥攂ut generally that refers to frost-level cold. You say you have been planting beans for years. In the same place/soil? Failure to rotate crops (or change the soil) can affect performance in a way that no amount of fertilizer can override. Finally, while your intentions are good re watering, does the soil get a chance to dry out? That’s almost as imporant to the plant’s success as enough water. We hope something suggests a remedy.
I am new to gardening and I planted some green beans this year. I picked some that were big, and found them to be very tough. Found some on the vine today that had turned white. Did I wait to long to pick? What caused them to turn white?
You don’t identify the type of beans you’re growing, but generally speaking, if your beans seemed to be bursting out of their casing/pod, you waited too long to pick them. The beans come soon after the flowers and you have to check at least every other day to check their progress. Then, when the beans form, you can harvest at almost any time. (There are no hard and fast rules. Your seed packet sometimes gives a suggested mature size.) Small, 鈥渋mmature鈥 beans will be tender; older ones鈥攍ike those you picked鈥攏ot so much. They are still edible, though; you can just cook them a little longer.
As for the white coloration, that sounds like disease, possibly white mold. It’s not necessarily your fault, especially if your garden/area has experienced a lot of rain and temps have been cool. (You do not say where you are.) The plants may be a bit too close together, inhibiting air circulation, but the mold is due to rain, there’s not much you can do. Discard the plants and beans in trash, not compost.
I am the first american born on my father's side of the family. My American grandmother worked at a dairy, my French grandparents were dairy farmers. I visited my French grandmother who is about to be 97 yrs old and brought back two varieties of flageolet beans, Flavert and Flajoly this year. My family in France lives in the NE, Lorraine, which is the same North wise as the USA-Canadian border(I live in South Carolina). The soil in Lorraine is the most fertile soil in the world (naturally without any help). I planted my beans here in SC on July 16 2017 in the evening and the Flavert beans were up this morning (July 20 2017). I use a furrow blade and dug trenches for each row and filled the rows with organic garden soil from California before planting. The beans state that they are to germinate in 5-8 days. So the Flavert are early. Because these beans normally grow in Lorraine, France I decided to grow them at the end of their advertised window so that they might grow and produce a yield versus just vines due to the heat here in SC. I know that French flageolet beans require rich soil, which I tried to provide, but that is all I know. I am an fiber farmer raising alpacas, angora goats, pigs, rabbits, poultry so I do have manure I could add but have not this year because I do not want a nitrogen over kill. I do have enough beans of the 2 varities to try again 3-5 times. If anyone has any info for growing beans in SC, growing flageolets outside of France or any other suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Joel Simon (Sgt USMC, veteran)
J&E Homestead LLC, owner operator
Yum! These are called 鈥渢he caviar of beans鈥 in some circles. We’ve not grown them but now want to! Thanks for posting, Joel, and for your service. We hope someone will share their experience with these beautiful beans.
when should I harvest them ? my step-father would bring in the bushel basket and my mom and I would shell them . that was in the 70's . I planted some but have no clue when to harvest them
