Tuesday 30 June 2015

Beans in the Garden: 2015 Varieties


I recently posted about planting borlotti beans as part of the three sisters garden I have; now for the rest of the beans.  I've never grown this many varieties (six!) or quantity of beans before, so I'm quite excited.  But the quantity certainly brings its challenges - especially with management of pests and critters that like to nibble!

I started with this patch (shown above) which was planted May 13th.  I have always direct sown my beans, as I’ve done with all of the varieties I have this year.  I don’t even soak them – just pop them in the ground and then water them in - it has just always worked for me in the past and it seems to have worked well enough this year again.  The plants were already a few inches tall when the frost/freeze hit on May 23rd.  I had covered them with plastic and weighed the plastic down with all sorts of gear from around the yard as there were also high winds.  The majority survived.  Where they were damaged, I removed the plant and reseeded.  The three varieties in this garden are of the bush variety and are all new to me this year …
 

The first two rows on the left are black turtle beans.  I’ve come to love borlotti beans just in the past few years, but I’ve always been a huge fan of black beans, so I’m excited to be growing my own for the first time.  These came from Greta’s Organic Seeds, a local company not far from where I live.  Black turtle beans can be vining or bush.  Although they take more garden space, I find bush beans easier to grow.  













These require a lengthy season – 100-140 days to harvest.  Having them in the ground in early May gives me to about the end of September for harvesting.  Just enough time, as we often experience frosts early in October.










The next two rows (so the middle two) are Royal Burgundy bush beans from William Dam Seeds.  


Compared to the long season required for the black beans (and similarly, most drying beans) these have only 50 days or so to harvest.  I can already see the dark purplish pods starting to develop.  


 













These ones have some nibbles on the leaf but not too bad and its only on a few leaves.




And the last two rows on the right are Delinel – again, from William Dam.  Their website states, “Delinel is consistently the earliest variety in our trials. Excellent taste and holding quality”.  I’m looking forward to trying these! 



Although their harvest time is slightly shorter than Royal Burgundy at 45 days, they seem a bit further behind.  Or maybe it's just that their flowers are lighter in colour and not as obvious.
















The remaining two bean varieties I have in the ground are vining / pole style.  I finally put together a trellis structure (my first ever!).  It did not take much time (which probably is evident in its lopsided-ness).  But I still seem to be challenged by getting beans (and peas) to climb up stuff.  I’ve got twine hanging down and keep hanging it over the plants hoping they’ll catch on to it – not so much yet (plus the twine keeps getting twisted up every time there is a wind).  Ugh, I think I’ll stick with bush beans in the future.


My other challenge is that they keep getting eaten … this garden space is right beside several acres of trees so I imagine there are all sorts of critters coming out of the bushes.  I’ve replanted and they seem to be okay for now, but I lost a lot of beans last year here as well – I guess I should take the hint and move them somewhere else next year!
Anyway, in the area with the trellis, I have Scarlet Runner (grown last year in the three sisters garden which means I didn’t get any at all) and Tarbais - a white bean that I successfully grew last year.  Although I was successful with the Tarbais, there was one mishap.  I mistakenly thought they were fresh beans early in the season (I was also growing Isabel pole beans) and harvested many of them for pickling.  Turns out they were fine to eat at that time (although a bit tougher than a fresh bean might have been), but I obviously had a much smaller harvest for drying at the end of the year.  When planting these out, I still had some Isabel beans left from previous years, but decided against planting any to avoid that problem – I’m unable to properly keep track of where I plant things so best to keep it simple.

And that’s it for my bean round-up. 



13 comments:

  1. I've always just direct sown my beans too. They are so reliable in germinating. When I make a trellis I always have a bottom pole, or string. I tie all the strings hanging down to it. That way their support is stable. And in a big wind the support takes the stress not the plant itself.

    I have trouble keeping track of where I plant things too. I have two kinds of celery, but didn't label them. So I have a nice trial going, but know way to tell which one is which. My problem is when I plant I really think I'll remember, but reality isn't like that. I always forget. You would think that logic would tell me I can't remember as I've been doing this for years, but nope.

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    1. Oh geez, same for me ... I think I'll remember which is which but never do. Yes, I had noticed you had your strings tied to something as they weren't just loosely hanging like mine - but I couldn't really figure out what to do. Until the plants (hopefully) attach themselves to the string, every time the wind blows, the strings get tossed all over the place.

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  2. Looks like your beans are off to a good start! Whenever I plant 2 varieties of pole beans side by side on the same trellis, I usually try to plant varieties that look different when they are growing. Last year I planted a yellow Romano next to a green variety - makes it SO much easier when it comes to picking.

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  3. Your garden is looking great. I see lots of snap beans in your future. I've grown Royal Burgundy before and they had loads of flowers but hardly any bean set, must be too hot and humid for them here.

    We're using the same trellis style. I've read you can just loosely tie the string to the plant and they'll start twining up the string once they're runners start running. Myself, I just tied more bamboo horizontally a few inches off the ground at the bottom of the legs, I did it for both sides of the trellis which makes the trellis a lot more stable and it gave me something to tie the string to.

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    1. Right, that seems a good idea to have another bamboo closer down. I went out earlier today (in between downpours) and did start to wrap the twine around the plants. They are a bit taller now than when I first set it up so it's easier to wrap them onto the plants. We'll see how it goes ...

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  4. I'm using netting with 6 inch openings for my trellises. Problem I have had is the high winds this year keep blowing the beans and peas away from the netting. I had to run a piece of twine around them and pull them toward the netting.

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  5. I'm using netting with 6 inch openings for my trellises. Problem I have had is the high winds this year keep blowing the beans and peas away from the netting. I had to run a piece of twine around them and pull them toward the netting.

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    1. I wonder if I saw that somewhere on your blog before ... I was actually looking for cheap badminton nets or something that is already ready made to use rather than work with the twine. I'll keep looking for something like that for next year.

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    2. I get the netting from garden suppliers. In Canada William Dam carries it. It lasts about two years.

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    3. Just checked it out ... that's SO perfect, thanks. Will get some for next year for sure.

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  7. Wow all those beans look really good. I have a few varieties too, at home and on the plot. I grow dwarf (bush) under my corn. I've lost a lot to slugs n snails though so am hoping another lot of direct sowing will not be too late. At home the last couple of years I've grown some climbing ones up my fence, a mixture of up poles and string. I've found that once the plant grows a bit, if it hasn't twined round the string already I can just give it a helping hand, and sometimes tie a little bit of string to attach it to the main string (a bit like tying in against a pole). Also, I've put a little stick where the bean is sown, to mark the location, plus the bean / string can be twined around that too. Other than the fence, I grow up wigwams, I'd like to try one of those V trellises but don't hVe enough long poles. Also I'm rubbish at tying knots.... And am quite short!

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    1. It sounds like most people use some sort of base whether it is rope or a pole, so I'll see about adding that next year (if I grow pole beans again!).

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