Growing Beans
(Page 2 of 3)
June/July 2009
By Barbara Pleasant
Allow dry beans to stay on the plants until the pods turn tan and the beans inside show good color and a hard, glossy surface. If damp weather sets in just when your beans should be drying, pull up the plants and hang them in a dry place until they are dry enough to shell and sort. Allow your shelled beans to dry at room temperature for two weeks before storing them in airtight containers. If you think insects might be present in your stored beans, keep them in the freezer.
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Saving Bean Seeds
To save dry beans for replanting, select the largest, most perfect seeds from your stored beans. With snap beans, it is best not to harvest beans from plants grown for seed production. That way, the plants will channel all their energy into big seeds that will grow into big seedlings. Be patient, because snap bean varieties that have been bred to stay tender for a long time are often slow to develop mature seeds. Under good conditions, bean seeds will store for at least three years. A packet will plant about 25 feet of row, which should produce 20 to 30 pounds of bush snap beans, or 40 pounds or more of pole beans. Expect about 1 1⁄2 pounds of dry beans from a 25-foot row.
Preventing Bean Pests and Diseases
- Brick-colored Mexican bean beetles sporting black spots often lay clusters of yellow eggs on leaves, which hatch into yellow larvae that rasp tissues from leaves. Handpick this pest in all life stages, and try spraying neem oil to control light infestations. In large plantings of more than one-fourth of an acre, releasing beneficial Pediobus wasps is a worthwhile strategy.
- Beans grown in sites that recently supported grasses are often sabotaged by night-feeding cutworms. Diatomaceous earth sprinkled over the soil’s surface can help reduce losses.
- Several fungal and bacterial diseases cause dark spots and patches to form on bean leaves. To keep from spreading diseases among plants, avoid working in your bean patch when foliage is wet.
- Promptly cut down and compost plants that are past their prime to interrupt the life cycles of pests and diseases.
Bean Growing Tips
Extend your harvest of bush snap beans by planting them two or three times, with each sowing three weeks apart. In warm climates, make a sowing in late summer, about 10 weeks before your first fall frost is expected.
Grow more beans in less space by growing pole varieties, which produce more per square foot by making good use of vertical growing space. Tall bamboo poles or saplings make easy tripods to support pole varieties.
