How and What to Grow in a Kitchen Garden of One Acre (10th Ed)/Beans
BEANS.
The first planting of snaps or dwarf bush beans can be made when the first planting of peas and bects are sown, but will not do as well nor produce beans of as fine quality as those planted about two weeks later, when the weather has become warmer and more settled. These yield very abundantly, and a drill fifty feet long will produce as many as can be used in a large family. While planting in a drill, for the sake of convenience and quickness in planting, the seed should be dropped in hills about ten inches apart and five seeds to a hill. If the beans are kept picked closely, the plants will continue longer in bearing, and they may be had throughout the season if successive plantings are made, though the pole snaps are to be preferred through the summer and fall, for their greater bearing qualities and the ease of gathering them. In both the bush and pole snaps, care should be taken to secure varieties that are entirely stringless, as they are not only much easier to prepare for use, but are much more tender. The different “Wax” varieties are very fine, but the bush beans of this class have not done well in this locality for the last three seasons, the pods being covered with a species of black spot or rot that spoils fully two-thirds of them.[1]
The pole beans should not be planted until the ground is thoroughly warmed in the spring, or until the thermometer stands over 60° all night. It is quite common to plant these with poles 8 to 9 feet in height. I think this is a mistake, as no ordinary picker can reach higher than about six feet to advantage, and as the vines grow to the tops of the poles before commencing to fruit, both beans and time are lost. The poles should be set in rows four and one-half feet apart and two and one-half to three feet apart in the rows. Two hundred poles of Limas will furnish an ample supply throughout the season, and will. ripen a bushel of dried beans for winter use as well. Twenty-five poles will furnish an ample supply of snaps, though we allowed one row across the garden in the diagram given, the surplus being allowed to ripen for winter use. Where the saving of room is an object and the ground has been well manured, these pole snaps can be planted in the hills of corn, and allowed to use the stalks as poles; they will produce a good crop, but not nearly so many, nor are they as easy to pick as when grown on the poles. For this purpose they should be planted with some strong growing variety of corn, such as Stowell’s Evergreen or other late variety.
The white soup bean, that is dried for winter use in various ways, including the famous “Boston Baked Beans,” is generally grown by dropping one or two hills between each hill of corn, and instead of picking them, the whole plant is pulled up in the fall, and the beans thrashed out with a flail when dry. For Limas and pole snaps, the poles should be set by the aid of the garden line, and where any pole is bowed or crooked it should be planted so as to bring it in line with the row, lengthwise, as nearly as possible, that they may present an orderly appearance. In setting the poles, make a hole from one to two feet deep by driving the sharp end of a crowbar into the ground, place the butt end of the pole in this hole and ram it firmly in its place; then put one or two shovelfuls of compost around the base of the pole, and with a sharp steel rake make a hill of fine dirt over the compost. Five or six beans should be planted to each hill, but if all grow should be thinned out to two or three. If the young plants do not climb the poles readily at the first start, they should be trained up and tied till they begin to take hold for themselves. Be careful, in planting Lima beans, to push them into the soil with the eye down, for, as the first leaves are quite large and heavy, it assists them materially in breaking through the soil to plant them in this manner.[2]
The Limas may be brought into bearing somewhat carlier in the season by placing pieces of sod, cut four inches square and about three inches thick, grass side down, in the hotbed, and planting four or five beans in each piece; if this is done in the latter part of March they will be of good size by the time it is warm enough to plant them out, which is done by planting the piece of sod at the base of the pole, in hills, as prepared for the seed. If the end of the vine is pinched off when it is about four or five feet up the pole, it will assist the lateral shoots in blooming early, and consequently produce beans earlier, though, like all forcing methods, it will, to some extent, lessen the vigor of the vine, and most likely, to some extent, the amount of the crop.
Bush Beans—Golden Wax.—This is one of the best bush beans; it matures early; the pods are of very handsome appearance, brittle and entirely stringless; it is a good bearer and makes an excellent shelled bean for winter use.
Best of All Dwarf Bean.—This is a green-podded bean, and is probably the best for the first planting, as it is not only very early but also very productive;
CHAMPION BUSH BEAN.
Champion Bush Bean.—This is a strong grower, attaining about fifteen to eighteen inches in height, and an immense cropper. The beans can be used as string beans in the green state, but its chief quality lies in the superiority of the beans when dried, and the large crops which it produces when grown for winter use.
Pole Beans, Snap Varieties—Golden Wax Flageolet.—This bean is of recent introduction, and is worthy of all the praise that has been bestowed upon it; it is a tremendous bearer, and is almost as early as the dwarf wax varieties, the pods are much larger, being seven to eight inches long, round and very fleshy; they are entirely free from strings and of the finest quality. Unlike the other pole beans, it begins to produce beans at the bottom of the pole as soon as it starts to climb; and if these are used as they mature, it will continue in bearing the entire season.[3]
White Creaseback, or Best of All.—These for early and the Lazy Wife’s for late are the best of the green-podded pole beans. The pods are about six inches in length, thick fleshed, and of very fine quality. The Creaseback is very early and matures its crop in a short time, thus making it a very profitable
LAZY WIFE’S POLE BEAN.
Limas—Extra Early Lima.—This variety matures very nearly as early as the Small Lima, while the beans are more nearly the size of the late Lima; the quality is very fine and the quantity large, as it bears the pods in clusters of four, with four to six beans in a pod.
Dreer’s Improved Lima.—This variety is early and very productive if measured in the green state; the pods are smaller than in the ordinary Lima, but the beans are very plump, and are so close together in the pods as to crowd against each other. As a green bean it is very early, and shells out more quarts to the basket of pods than the larger varieties; but the quality is not as fine, and in the dry state the beans shrivel up till they are only about the size of dry bush beans, and are not nearly so good as the other varieties.
King of the Garden.—This is a new variety, in which the green beans are of unusual size and very fine quality. I have scen half an acre planted with this variety which I am sure had at that time mora than twice the quantity of beans that could be grown on the same ground of the ordinary kinds; vines were loaded with clusters of pods seven to eight inches in length, and it was no rarity to see them with five very large beans in a pod. From its great productiveness and the fine quality of the beans, it deserves the first place among the Limas.
- ↑ Miss Moll says that this rusting can be prevented by only hoeing the beans when the soil is dry. We would also particularly recommend Burpee’s Perfection Wax, a fine new variety, that has so far proved free from rust.—Ed.
- ↑ See the method of covering the seed of Lima beans described by Miss L. M. Moll, and our note on the same.—Ed.
- ↑ We would also particularly recommend Burpee’s White Zulu, a new variety of 1888. It is one of the carliest of pole beans, immensely productive, and the broad, handsome, white pods, eight to ten inches long, are of the choicest quality.—Ed.