All About Growing Dry Beans and Peas

By Barbara Pleasant
Updated on January 19, 2022
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Keith Ward
Dry beans and peas are a healthy staple crop that can be stored long into winter. With a huge variety of colorful pods and seed shapes and colors, it’s almost impossible to grow every kind of bean and pea variety available. Pictured here is the ‘Good Mother Stallard’ dry bean.

Get the goods on growing dry beans (and peas) as easy-to-store legumes, which pack as much protein per serving as eggs and cottage cheese.

Dry beans and peas provide as much protein per serving as well-known protein powerhouses, such as eggs and cottage cheese, with the added benefits of fiber and an array of minerals. You could eat the dry seeds from any green bean or pea, but certain bean and pea varieties grown for their higher yields of flavorful, nutrient-dense seeds are a better use of garden space.

When growing dry beans and peas in most climates, plant after your spring crops so they mature in dry fall weather. Legume flowers attract beneficial insects, and because of legume plants’ ability to obtain much of their nitrogen through partnerships with soil-dwelling bacteria, beans and peas remove fewer nutrients from the soil compared with most other crops.

Types to Try for Growing Dry Beans and Peas

Choosing varieties that suit your climate is key to growing dry beans and peas. Note that all dry bean and pea varieties can be harvested and cooked fresh as the seeds approach ripeness, or you can leave them to mature into their dry, easy-to-store form.

Soup peas

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