When Plant Green Beans
For kids and adults alike, the crunch of biting on a raw green bean is quite satisfying.They can also be steamed, blanched, sauteed or roasted and enjoyed with butter, salt and pepper, or added to soup and stews.With cream of mushroom soup and onions, green beans can be made into a casserole.Green beans are also a favorite of canners because a summer abundance can be enjoyed for months to come.Pole beans, on the other hand, will just keep climbing upward and producing until killed by heat or frost, so staggering the planting times is not necessary.Regardless of what type you are planting, sow seeds outdoors 1 inch deep in fertile, well-worked soil after the last frost date in spring.Green beans grow best in soil with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0, which is a range of slightly acidic to precisely neutral.Green beans also require full sun — a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight daily.Three weeks before transplanting outdoors, sow seeds in sterile seed-starting mix kept at a temperature between 60° and 85° Fahrenheit, and they will germinate in 5 to 10 days.There are many garden trellises for sale, but make one yourself rather easily with three to four bamboo stakes tied into a teepee.Mulch will retain moisture between rainfall and watering and will keep the soil warm on cool nights.Organic mulch provides nutrients as it breaks down and also has the benefit of creating a barrier between the plant foliage and pathogens in the soil.Antigua is a bush bean with 5-inch, uniform, dark green pods and good disease resistance.Borsalino is a French bean with bright yellow pods that are at peak flavor when between 4 and 4 and a half inches long.It is a bush-type bean with vigorous, productive plants that grow up to 20 inches tall with good disease resistance.The plants reach 6-8 feet tall with flat, straight silvery-green pods that grow 6-8 inches long.Velour is a disease-resistant bush-type bean with striking, deep purple, smooth, round pods that grow 5 and a half inches long.Wyatt is a bush-type bean with productive, uniform plants and deep emerald green, tender pods that grow up to 6 and a half inches.Soaker hoses or drip irrigation next to the base of plants and set on automatic timers will ensure green beans always have the water they need.Just be sure to avoid overhead watering because getting plants wet will invite disease, especially if soil splashes on leaves.Floating row cover is a useful physical barrier between beetles and plants, but hard to use on pole beans.Thrips damage green bean leafs, flowers and pods, but they are so small, you likely won’t see them.Leafhoppers are small, light green or gray wedge-shaped insects that may show up in warm weather and damage bean foliage by sucking out plant juices, spreading diseases in the process.PyGanic 5.0, an organic, broad-spectrum contact insecticide made from pyrethrin, which is derived from Chrysanthemum, is a leafhopper control option.Avoid overhead watering and don’t touch the foliage or harvest the pods when the leaves are wet, to reduce spreading the fungus.And once the harvest is over, remove and destroy infected plants so the spores don’t overwinter and return next season.It’s important to pick pods before they get tough and stringy, which can happen if they are left on the plant for too long.Once harvested, enjoy green beans fresh or store them in the crisper drawer in a ban or container whole and unwashed for up to a week.The selection of all items featured in this post was based solely on merit and in no way influenced by any affiliate or financial incentive, or contractual relationship.At the time of this writing, Joe Lamp’l has professional relationships with the following companies who may have products included in this post: Rain Bird, Corona Tools, Milorganite, Soil3, Exmark, Greenhouse Megastore, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Territorial Seed Company, Wild Alaskan Seafood Box and TerraThrive