Want to have more energy and slow aging? Grow beans.

As with almost all homegrown food, your own beans will taste better than store-bought varieties. Both fresh and dried green beans are rich in the B vitamins and potassium.

B vitamins help your body make protein and energy. Potassium regulates fluids and electrolytes in the body. The shortage of potassium contributes to muscular fatigue and cramping

They may have even more antioxidants than blueberries and as much cholesterol-lowering fibber as oats. They also are an excellent source of lean protein.

Beans are such easy plants to grow and harvest. They are a great plant to encourage your kids or grandkids into the garden.

Most bean varieties grow quickly and they are prolific producers. The challenge for you is to spread out the harvest so that they are not all harvested at once.

To that endeavor, I would suggest you grow smaller rows and a couple varieties with varying days to maturity.

Speaking of the varieties.

Beans are divided into snap, shell and dry varieties depending on their stage of development at harvest. Snap beans, also called string, green or yellow beans, are picked fresh from early summer on, when their seeds are still undeveloped or very small.

The smaller the beans when picked, the better the taste: the pods start to dry out as soon as they are picked and become limp and bendy within a few hours.

Shell beans, also called horticultural beans, are harvested when the beans are fully formed in the pods but not dried out.

Dry beans are harvested when they rattle in the pods.

You’ll want to consider whether to choose a bush or a pole variety of dry bean.

Pole beans grow six to ten feet tall by twining around sticks, strings or wires; strong supports, such as trellises or tepees are best set in place before or soon after the seeds are sown.

Bush types are self-supporting and grow only to two or three feet. As far as flavor is concerned, there are many delicious varieties of both pole and bush beans.

Though beans are at their best in moderately rich soil, they do well in a wide range of soils, even without fertilizer. In especially acidic soil (below a pH of 6.0) the addition of wood ashes, dolomite lime or compost will, by their alkaline nature, moderate the acidity.

In a very sandy soil that leeches nutrients easily, nitrogen should be added, but bear in mind that too much will promote excessive leaf growth, plus delay and reduce pod production. 

Beans are a warm-weather crop and there is little to be gained by having them shiver through their early growth. Planting beans in raised beds saves a lot of space and work. Raised beds also heat up more quickly in spring to allow an earlier sowing.

Soaking beans beforehand is not usually worth it when they are going into cold soil anyway.

It is a good idea to mulch round the young plants with grass cuttings (providing the lawn has never been sprayed with chemicals): this keeps down the weeds and stops the soil from drying out.

They will start flowering 5 weeks after sowing. They are very low maintenance plants that can tolerate very high temperatures.

As for the pole beans, picking them gets them to grow more pods.

Bush Bean, pole bean. Yellow bean, green bean. Asparagus bean, Fava bean, Lima bean, Navy bean. The list goes on and on and on. Wow, there’s certainly a lot of beans to toot about. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that most gardeners grow a  bean or two in their home garden…… Do you?

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Yours truly for a great garden with outstanding veggies and flowers.


Polly-organic gardener