I am interested in growing both bush beans & pole beans. Last year, someone recommended a variety of bush bean that fruited very early. It did indeed. Unfortunately, I can't remember the cultivar name. Can anyone recommend varieties?
I can't help you with this but I will tell you what I have chosen to grow this year. rattlesnake beans yard long beans butter bean and lima bean bush beans I will pick up more. Some I will let dry and some I will can fresh. I also can't wait....
We lived in upstate NY, and about the third year of vegetable gardening I found Tendergreen bush beans, and stuck with them for the next 20 years. They are easy to grow, easy to pick, and if you let them sit after the first crop, they'll come back with another flush of beans. Here in Texas we plant Tendergreen Improved (I can't tell the difference, but every once in a while the seed companies feel compelled to add "improved" to a variety's name). I didn't grow them, but our next-door neighbor had Kentucky Blue pole beans, and they did very well for him.
Can you give me the details such as what kind of soil we used to grow, how many times we had to watering... ????
I have been looking for those butterbeans forever !They are the large ones like you buy in bags at the store aren`t they ? Where did you get them and are they bush or vining type?
Mart, I got them at our Pennsylvania Farm Show a few weekends ago at the Rohrer Seed booth. rohrerseeds.com You can buy online. If you followed my canning topics last Summer I was not going to be struggling to find them again. I am growing my own. They say to support them with a pole or fence. I would think they are pole beans.
oliahuynh, Hopefully someone can answer your questions about soil and watering. I really don't know about that. I have 2 good size gardens that have mushroom soil in them and chicken manure also. I water them when they get dry.... :-D
Oliahuynh, we have dark, sticky soil, called "gumbo". We have added compost for the last six years, and the soil is lighter, but not what you'd call ideal. We are in Texas, so green beans are a spring crop, and planted again in the fall. The summer heat kills off the plants, so from late June to September we don't have beans in the garden. We plant in March, water when the first 1" of soil is dry, and try to keep the soil moist but not wet. Personally, I haven't found that mulching does that much good, so I don't bother. Those with sandier soil would need to water more often.
We have a very sandy loam which we add horse manure to every year !! Where we grow our beans we do not water unless nature does it for us and we get rain. As long as the top of our soil is not disturbed much during growing season it stays moist underneath even though dry on top !!
Blue Lake Bush is my favorite also. I like them and, since I can them, I like that they ripen heavily then taper off.
I am also trying 'Blue Lake' this year as I have heard great things about them. Each year I also grow a bush variety called 'Royal Burgundy'. They are very prolific and produce right up until the first frost. They aren't actually green, but purple beans, and very tasty. The do turn green when cooked. I highly recommend trying them.
Hi Cayuga Morning! We love the Scarlet Runner Bean and think they're great additions to any garden. They're pretty easy to grow and care for, though they can get quite tall--up to 9 feet! However, they have tremendously beautiful red flowers that complement the greenery and are huge attractions for hummingbirds. They take a little longer than many varieties of beans, but they sure are worth it! Good luck!
