What is the natural lifespan of beans?

[homewardbound]

I am trying to work out a planting schedule for the Piedmont region of South Carolina because I want to buy a piece of property there. However, this is a purely academic exercise since there is practically no chance that I will ever buy property in SC or anywhere else. My own health isnt good and my only family is my mother who is disabled with lupus. So I will never have the farm that I want or the farm that I can afford because I have no one to help with the labor involved with running a farm and my mother doesnt want to move. But I am planning for what I want in order to not go crazy.

All of my growing experience (over 30 years) has been in Florida- which isnt part of the real world climatologically speaking. If I move I will have to learn how to have a garden all over again. It is too cold to plant green/snap beans here before the middle of March, but by the time June arrives with its 90 degree weather you pull up your green bean plants because that is the humane thing to do even if they are still producing flowers. It is too hot to plant a second crop before September and these plants can easily get killed by the freezing weather of November so they dont die of old age either. Can someone give me some idea about how long a harvest period green beans have?

I have a similar situation with lima/butterbeans. Since Ive always had limited space in Florida I have never planted lima/butterbeans in the spring (to maximize the green bean crop before the 90 degree weather takes over). My lima/butterbean crop has always gone in at the end of June or first part of July because they can take the hot weather here. The harvest comes in the 2nd half of September. But by then our rainy season is in full-force so the plants never last long enough to get a second picking. They dont die of old age either. So again I need some idea as to how long their harvest season should normally last. I need to judge how long I will have to reserve planting beds for beans before I can plant something else because I will need to make a little bit of space and labor produce as much food as possible.

 

[momofdrew]

Hwbound...I too have a dream of buying a farm...but unless I hit the lottery I doubt I'll get it...but it doesnt hurt to dream...

here in NH my beans go in around the middle of June and they start to die off by early september if we dont get frost first...I would think in SC the ground would be warmer earlier so you could plant earlier...

 

[digitS']

Bush bean seeds sown in my garden during the warm weeks will produce a nice crop in 60 days. If they are sown as early as possible, I can usually allow them to go for a 2nd crop, late in the season. However, they are always attacked by spider mites and it often seems best just to pull the plants after harvest.

Pole beans can last the entire growing season here but take more than a couple months before there are any beans to harvest.

A gardener should really try all those things that are grown commercially or commonly around them. Often, a taste for a vegetable or fruit doesn't develop until we find these things in our very own gardens and try them at their best. The area just to the south of me has been called the "dry pea & lentil capital of the US." There are also acres of garbanzo beans. Actually, I like all of these things so it wasn't really necessary for me to have grown all of them in my garden to develop an appreciation for them. Still, I found growing them fun (and rewarding). I am also "tuned in" fairly closely to what goes on in the very few truck farms in this part of the world.

I often find myself dreaming of gardening and that has gone on just forever. I don't suppose that it is any surprise for the people in TEG . One of my dreams for gardening forums is to find gardeners who have very similar growing climates in other parts of the world and learn what they have in their gardens! I've done a little research in Wikipedia and on weather sites to gain some understanding of where these places are. It was fun just identifying the climates.

Unless we are concerned about trees or the very few perennial vegetables, winter climate doesn't have much importance for gardeners in temperate zones. Growing season climates are a very different thing. Homewardbound, you might think about doing academic climate studies .

Steve

 

[homewardbound]

Often, a taste for a vegetable or fruit doesn't develop until we find these things in our very own gardens and try them at their best.

Im this way with cabbage and broccoli. I dont eat cooked cabbage, but until I started growing cabbage in my own garden I seldom ever ate coleslaw. The quality of what you can buy in the grocery store simply isnt worth the effort to turn cabbage into coleslaw. The same goes for broccoli in stir fry. But this past winter was so hot that I only harvested 2 heads of cabbage and it took both to make coleslaw and ever single broccoli plant bolted before I got a single picking.

One of my dreams for gardening forums is to find gardeners who have very similar growing climates in other parts of the world and learn what they have in their gardens!

Where I live in Florida is the only place in the world at this particular latitude that isnt arid, semi-arid or desert. Like I said Florida isnt part of the real world.

I've done a little research in Wikipedia and on weather sites to gain some understanding of where these places are. It was fun just identifying the climates.

Ive been watching a lot of gardening-themed British TV programs on youtube. Ive done the same thing you have trying to find places in America that have Britains climates.

Unless we are concerned about trees or the very few perennial vegetables, winter climate doesn't have much importance for gardeners in temperate zones.

Where I am in Florida I actually have more variety in my garden in the winter than I do the summer. You can grow some summer crops (like tomatoes and peppers) starting in January as long as you can cover them when the weather freezes, but there is no way you can grow lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, greens, carrots or potatoes here before September or after March.

 

[chris09]

Here in Ohio I get Bush Beans in the ground mid to late may and I harvest those same plant all the way up to frost. As long as I keep picking they keep producing.


Chris

 

[homewardbound]

Here in Ohio I get Bush Beans in the ground mid to late may and I harvest those same plant all the way up to frost. As long as I keep picking they keep producing.


Chris

I've always heard that things like beans will produce as long as you keep them picked because they want to produce long enough to produce seed. Picking tricks the plants into thinking that they haven't produced seed so they keep going. But green beans won't survive Florida's 90+ degree heat so the plants die even when they haven't yet produced any seed. The part of SC that I am interested in has 90 degree weather, but only for about a month where my part of Florida gets 90 degrees from late April to as late as October. A spring crop in SC will likely still get killed by the heat at some point so I could plan with this in mind. But knowing more about a bean plants natural lifecycle would help me know if the plants will reach a point where leaving them in the ground wont produce enough of a harvest to make it worth not using the space to grow something else.

 

[digitS']

One of my ancestors came to Canada from the south of England . . . His wife had a Scottish name so I'm not too sure what that was about.

Anyway, he finally died in Toronto. You know what they say about Toronto weather? It is 6 months of winter followed by poor snowmobile weather.

One of their kids kept on heading west, maybe because there weren't snowmobiles in Toronto at that time. After a miserable winter in Manitoba, he and his family made it to the British Columbia coast. It was probably more like his father's climate at home in England than eastern Canada. His own son, my grandfather, always wanted to be somewhere with sunshine and ended up in southern California. Actually, he "ended up" back in BC for the last 10 years of his life.

I've talked a little with Hattie here on TEG. She agreed that her climate upstream from my UK family's home, is probably much like the Portland, Oregon area. Grandpa overshot that community on his way south . . . But, I won't say anything bad about Portland partly because it has been my son's preferred residence for 20 years now.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

I think you should plant them in succession and put them where you will SEE them. I've been playing with growing beans for a few years and I forget to harvest. When you do that, they stop producing. When you continuously harvest your beans, the plants keep making more.
Gotta get the camera out, but THIS year I'm putting beans in a place where I will see them. I planted 1/2 of the old, cattle fence that is 12' from the street, with scarlet runner beans last weekend. I'm sure to look at it several times a week. Also, DH will be harvesting there, too, and he can look for beans to harvest, along with sugar-snap peas, then tomatoes, so I'll have a 2nd set of eyes.

 

[897tgigvib]

What you should do, if you ever go to the place you dream about, is find out what they grow there. Especially you would talk to the old folks, many of whom don't use computer things.

I think you'd find they grow more Collards than Cabbage, which would mean Kale of both species would grow the same. Some of those heirloom Collards are part Kale. I know, can't really make cole slau, but then, those same ole timers will have soup recipes that'll knock yer socks off. Up in the hills they will know all about Beans. Anything any of us say who don't live there will be part right at best. You'd want to go there for a few days and visit. Try to find out when and where some farmer's markets are happening, usually Saturdays. That's where you'd meet the folks who really and truly know. If you did that during late summer, early fall, you might even be able to trade or buy seeds you plain can't get at a store.

If it happens to be a place too hot for regular beans to make much, there are varieties of yardlong or cowpeas that like it hot in summer.

I'd think there would be a right time of year to plant some varieties of Cabbage. Not sure if it'd be a long season or short season Cabbage. It may turn out that the way to do cabbage would be to grow a lot and pick them small before they bolt.

There are kinds of Broccoli called Sprouting Broccoli that make small tight clusters of flowers. They are bred that way. Around here, they are planted around July, and produce early in spring around time to plant peas. They are real cool.

 

[homewardbound]

look for beans to harvest, along with sugar-snap peas,

It must be nice in the real world. Where I live now you cannot count on getting any kind of green pea harvest because you cannot count on the weather staying cool long enough. And under no circumstances could you ever harvest green peas and green beans at the same time. Where I live it is too hot to plant green peas anytime before November or quite often anytime after the start of February.