Bush Beans

[duajones]

I have a couple packs of seeds, blue lake 274 and some inocculant that I meant to plant in the fall but never got around to it. How many plants do I need to get a bountiful harvest? And I havent prepared the soil in anyway as of yet. Any suggestions on soil prep? Plus, I have read where you can plant as many as 9 per sqft which would be good as I dont really have much space.

[MawkHawk]

I usually plant them about 6" apart but I've read that you can go as close as 3" apart, so 9 / sq ft is not out of the question.

I usually sow a section about 4'x8', 6" apart so that's.....uuuuh....(carry the 4)....128 plants.....

Wow, I didn'realize it was so many.

That gives my family of 3 more than enough to eat fresh and quite a lot to freeze. Sorry, I don't weigh them but I'd guess about 5-10 lbs or so to freeze. They're heavy yielding.

I have not used inocculant so can't help you there.

I don't prepare the bed any special way. I have an 8" raised bed where I grow everything. I amend every spring with a couple inches of compost / manure and some Garden-Tone for the non-tomato plants area.

In my area slugs gorge themselves on my beans, so lay down some DE or some toxic slug bait if they're a problem down there.

[shelleybean]

I plant my seeds about 3-4 inches apart and I don't thin the plants. A ten foot row of bush beans provides oodles for us. I use inoculant and plant in a 12 inch deep raised bed. I also put down a two inch layer of compost before I plant. Shortly after the plants come up, I mulch with wheat straw to keep the soil from drying out, weeds down and the beans clean.

[feldon30]

Blue Lake is certainly one of the most popular. I don't really like regular green beans, preferring something a bit more exotic. I grew Triumphe de Farcy which are little French filet beans that did well, and I was blown away by the success I had with Dragon Tongue beans, which are purple and yellow striped beans that are quite tender and buttery (although the purple fades when they are cooked). Dragon Tongue can be found at Target under Sean Conway seeds. Triumphe de Farcy can be found there or in any of the large Burpee racks under Heirlooms. Brittle Wax yellow beans didn't really do well for me, so I am trying other varieties this year.

Ignore the directions on the packet to 'plant 3" apart in rows 1' apart' as these directions are for farming. In a raised bed garden (with or without lumber/stone sides), you can successfully plant bush beans as close as 4-6" apart in staggered rows. In a 3' x 8' bed, if you jammed them in at 5" centers, you could get 126 plants, each yielding, say, 40 beans with ideal fertilization and adequate full sun, or 6,000 beans over the span of 2 months.

Bush beans are self-supporting plants that get 12-18" tall and the beans hang off of them. It can be very difficult to "find" the beans as the leaves provide very good camouflage. You'll find yourself bending down and looking at the plants from both sides of the bed to find all the beans. If you let any beans "mature" or grow to full size, the plant will slow down, thinking it has successfully produced enough seeds that it can stop trying to reproduce.



Inoculant is not absolutely necessary but if you have never grown beans in a particular area before, it's a good idea. The soil should be loose, sandy loam, with some added compost and/or composted cow manure so that the soil temporarily holds together when you squeeze it. If you are unsure of the compost/manure content, I would add 1-2 40lb bags of composted cow manure to a 3' x 8' bed and mix it in well into the top 4-5 inches of soil. Then I would broadcast at the recommended dose Osmocote 14-14-14 or other balanced vegetable fertilizer. You should not need to fertilize again except maybe when the bean plants are in their heaviest production. That would be done by watering with diluted fish emulsion.

You should NOT soak beans overnight. This is not necessary and can cause the beans to rot. I would water the soil you will be planting in until it is thoroughly moistened. Then I would fill a spray bottle with water and give all your beans a spritz of water, then toss them in a inoculant (in a separate container), then immediately plant them about 1" deep on 5" centers as mentioned above.


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In Houston, leaf-roller caterpillars are a major problem on beans. Long-tailed Skipper Butterflies/Moths will visit your beans as soon as they have a good set of leaves and will go to work, laying their eggs:
http://www.cirrusimage.com/skipper_long_tailed.htm

The best solution is to dust your plants once a week with dipel dust which contains Bacillus thuringiensis, also known as BT powder or Dipel Dust, which is a bacteria that is toxic to caterpillars but otherwise safe. It is considered an organic product. You don't want this:

[duajones]

Thanks so much for the quick replies. I have some 2X10s laying around so after seeing your pics Feldon Ive decided to make a small raised bed just for the beans.

[spyfferoni]

I grew Royal Burgandy beans last year. I liked them because they were easy to see and harvest. I also had good luck with Cherokee Wax beans. I may have to try those Dragon Tongue beans, they sound interesting. My mom always canned green beans growing up. She would add a little dehydrated onion to the beans and they were really good. I would like to try making some Dilly Beans this year. Any one ever try growing Romano type beans? What are they like?

Tyff

[shelleybean]

I love Dilly Beans!

In a bush form of flat Romano type bean, I've grown Bountiful, which is probably the most productive bush bean I've grown. I only grew two ten foot rows, planted about a month apart, and we had beans all summer. I picked about three times a week and they just kept coming. And they're stringless too, so that's another plus. I'm going all pole this year-peas, snap beans and lima beans-but if I grew bush beans again, I'd grow Bountiful as my snap bean.

[duajones]

this will be my first time with bush, tried pole kentucky wonders couple years back but didnt really put them in a good spot, plus did nothing to the hard packed clay soil. So blue lake this time, maybe bountiful on my next go round. I may even try planting them a few weeks apart to harvest a little longer as shelly bean mentioned.

[ddsack]

I've tried both pole and bush Romano beans. Personally, I like the bush Romano's better, because the pole Romano's seemed to take longer to mature, and were harder to find among the leaves than regular pole beans, so some got too big before I found them. I like the taste of Romano's - very delicate buttery taste, but my husband doesn't much care for them. They don't freeze as well, and you don't want to overcook them or they easily turn mushy or fall apart.

[PaulF]

I have planted several varieties of bean over the years and Bush Blue Lake is what I always go back to. I plant the seeds 3-4" apart and just empty the small packet. Usually that is 2 rows of 15 feet and we get lots of beans. I have never used innoculant and they do just fine.

[nctomatoman]

Fusion yelled at me on the phone for professing my love of bush beans (I know, I know - pole beans have a better reputation for flavor, but my few attempts at growing them in my current garden were nearly complete failures in terms of yield!).

I love EZ Pick, Provider, Marbel, the Blue Lakes - Roc d'Or, Dragon Langerie....really never met a home-grown bean I didn't like. If only tomatoes were as easy to grow well in the climate here in NC!

Great advice in this thread - just putting in my 2 cents.

[duajones]

Never met a home grown veggie that I didnt like, me being a veggie lover in general. I hear ya

[Ruth_10]

Tendergreen or Tendergreen Improved is another good bush bean. If you keep the beans picked (don't leave any big buzzards on the plant), they will put on a second blush of blossoms and beans after the first is done. The second harvest is not as large as the first, but it is free.

I've never found innoculant to be worth the expense or effort. My general sense from planting beans anywhere from a 3" to a 6" center is that the total yield of beans is about the same. In a wide row planting of bush beans, they will be competing for sun, moisture, and nutrients and thus a certain amount of space supports a certain amount of production, in my experience.

[duajones]

Put my raised bed together today. Ended up 3 x 7, used some leftover 2x10s that a friend gave me. Ends of the 3 pieces were in pretty bad shape so I cut 6 inches off each end, thus the odd 3 x 7.

[Ruth_10]

You're good to go!