The Gardening Calendar- Beans

The bean season began for me with my early heirloom wax bean, Pisarecka Zlutoluske, soaked 3 days and planted out around April 15, now showing nice growth.  Most beans can't take cool soil and will rot, but not PZ.

After about 5 weeks PZ is doing well, and I seeded some more bush snap beans May 8 that have just come up.  PZ are the larger seedlings down the middle.  On the right is a new bush dry bean called Spanish Tolosana, renowned as a good cooking bean, and  at the top, Marconi nano Italian black-seeded Romano beans, and some little white-seeded pencil-thin and fast-developing beans, Speedy, and some more pencil-thin purple beans, Velour-

The sprouts on the left are mostly self-sown Borage, most of which will get pulled, and also some Lupines that I am growing as a poisonous hedge against possible rabbit interlopers that ate a lot of my young bean plants last year, though not in this bed.  At the bottom is what's left of a large Columbine, and another at the top of the photo, that volunteered in the middle of my garden bed, but I love Columbines too much to rip them out.  After the growing season is over I may dig them and try to transplant them elsewhere.  They turned out to be monster plants with many bloom stalks.

The beans above are regular bush beans, Phaseolus vulgaris, but I have also just planted a different species of beans, which are called runner beans, Phaseolus coccineus, which make larger pods and are distinguished by the seed leaves being left in the ground when the bean sprouts.  They are usually dark purple and black beans with red flowers that the hummingbirds love, but this year I am trying white-seeded varieties to see if they are more tender, and they will have white flowers, so I hope the hummingbirds are not too bummed out.   Bianca di Spagna, somewhat slug-eaten-

Last week around May 25 I planted more bush snap beans- Purple Queen, cold-tolerant; Kinghorn wax, wide yellow wax beans; heirloom Yer Fasulyasi, a brown-seeded Romano bush bean that makes nice succulent pods; and also some heirloom half-runner beans that will need some supporting trellising to about 3+', Pink Peanut (aka Old Joe Clark) and Woods Mountain Crazy beans.

My next bean plantings will need to be by or close to my last bean deadline, June 15, though fast-maturing bush beans or Grandma Robert's Purple Pole beans can be planted a little later and still mature seeds.  They will be regular pole beans- North Carolina Speckled Long Greasy Cutshort, heirloom, new to me; Jembo Polish, beautiful seeds, heirloom, new to me; Grandma Robert's Purple, the earliest pole bean I grow; Annelino Giallo, curved yellow Italian bean; Uncle Steve's, heirloom Italian striped bean; and Super Marconi, wide Italian Romano bean, and probably some more bush beans as well.   I may also grow a mystery round purple pole bean that  came up in some Italian bush beans I grew 2 years ago, with black seeds spotted white which I discussed with a photo here, along with other beans mentioned in this post.

June 15 is also the deadline for other warm season vegetables, like squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes, though I start them and get them out in the garden earlier under TunLCovers.

I started out as mostly an edible gardener, but eventually branched out into lots of flowers and perennials, because variety gives the pollinating and predatory insects the food and shelter they need, and beauty and fragrance add so much to life, but beans are my favorite vegetable crop, so I'm looking forward hopefully to another great bean season, I promise there is nothing as yummy in the grocery store!   And not much as rewarding to grow!

-Hannah