Bean harvest
Beans! i decided that since it’s getting pretty cool at night now, i should bring in the meager bean harvest. There were a lot of green pods, but there were a couple of yellow ones holding mature beans. The two kinds that i grew were Kidney and Black Coco (which look just like kidney beans except that they’re solid black and shiny). I planted 8 plants in the garden, and 6 survived. Only two really got to a decent size, however. Most stayed quite small and only yielded 5 or 6 pods. The biggest had maybe 30 pods on it, although not all of those reached maturity.
Next year, i’m going to start them much earlier (because i start this year in late may/early june). I’m also going to put them closer together, maybe with 8 inches separating each plant, and maybe alternating the spacing of the rows so i can put them closer together. Seems like i had a lot of unused dirt in the garden this year, but i really didn’t know what each plant was going to look like so it was hard to space them properly.
Ride hard, ride free
October 31st, 2008 at 08:09 am
Were they pole or bush beans? If they were bush beans, 4-6″ spacing is usually good, in rows 12″ apart. It depends a bit on the variety, but this is about what I usually do.
If you’re lucky with bush beans, after about a month they will grow enough to smother the weeds. You just have to make sure to keep the weeds under control before that yourself.
Spacing is really important, and sometimes a bit of a challenge to figure out when you don’t get this information with your seeds.
The reason some of the plants might not have done well was because nitrogen fixing bacteria wasn’t in the ground, which the plants need. If a couple of plants did well, than it’s in the ground there at least. Next year you might try either planting more beans in the same spot, or digging up some of the ground and putting it on the spot you plant next years beans.
Baker Creek has a good planting guide, with some guidelines for this:
http://rareseeds.com/guide/
What are your plans for next year?