Snap, break, soak, steam, pickle, can, freeze, add them to stir fry… it’s beans all around.

If you are looking for an easy-to-grow vegetable that offers a lot of versatility, go for the green beans. You can start the seeds indoors, but no need to go to the trouble.  Bean seeds germinate quickly when you direct sow them in the garden. 

Before planting your beans, you first need to decide if you want bush beans or pole beans. 

Bush beans are planted in a row, while pole beans are planted to grow on a trellis, pole or bean tower. Both varieties will give you lots of good eating for your family.

Every year I decide if I’m going to grow the bush beans next to my tomatoes or if I need to ask Ron to set up the bean towers.  Because I prefer to stand when picking my beans, I’m going for the pole beans again this year.

Both types of beans have bountiful harvests of green or yellow beans.  You can typically get three good pickings, with some stragglers rounding out the bean season.

For our 2020 garden, we have two towers in a 4 x 4 bed that stand 6 ft tall and have 32 strings that go from the bottom circle to the top circle.  I space out the two plantings by three weeks so the beans are producing at different intervals. This gives us a steady stream of beans throughout the summer.

Before planting, ensure the danger of frost is over or have some way to provide frost protection. Beans don’t like the cold.

Tip: Be sure to clear all debris from your bean patch to discourage pests.  Inexpensive landscape fabric will keep the bush beans clean.  Just lay the fabric on the bed and cut a slit where you want to plant, about 1.5” wide and the length of the row.  Your bush beans will get rusty sitting on soil, but the garden fabric keeps them safe and clean.

There are a lot of good varieties and for most, the season is over before the bean beetles find out you planted them.  If planting bush beans, find a secondary spot in the garden to plant a second row of beans to keep the season going longer. 

Tip: Beans will grow and produce lovely long beans as long as you keep the weeds out, and most importantly, keep them watered.

There is no science to planting the bean seeds; simply plant them 2” deep.  This will help them develop a better root system and keep the beans stable. 

Whether you plant a 12 ft row in a raised bed or 50 ft row in a traditional garden, bush beans will give you many nights of breaking beans with the family (whether they want to or not). Picking them can be painstaking, too, especially since you’ll spend a great deal of time bending over to find and harvest each bean. (Green bean on green plant… it’s easy to miss a few.)

Our favorite bush beans include the Bush Blue Lake green bean and the Rocdor Wax Bean, both from Park Seed.

Our favorite pole bean is the Cobra green bean from Park Seed. This one stands out from the rest because its first flowers are violet-purple, which add a lot of beauty to the garden. They also have a longer season than most.

Tip: You can purchase your bean towers through Burpee Seeds. These are easy to set up and easy to take down and store when the season ends.

Growing beans is great because you don’t need a green thumb to be successful, so get ready to plant your beans this year!

“Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.” — Marcelene Cox, 20th Century American Writer

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