Harvesting Green Beans

This time of year gets a little crazy when it comes to being able to keep up with the harvesting of green beans. I like them when they are smaller and it seems like there is a window of picking opportunity to get the best ones. When they are left for too long they get a little tough and then the stage right after that they are not at all edible. I currently have a constant supply of beans for dinner and lunches and I feel like I am never tired of them. Last year I grew cantaloupe in half of the box and I decided to change it up a little bit and it’s entirely all beans this year.

The variety of bean that is growing here is called Blue Lake Pole Beans from Botanical Interests

I created a small arbor that goes from one box to the other and I posted a little about it last 

summer. You can see more at this link 

 

Growing Beans

Deciding on the right type of bean to grow is fairly easy once you know how much space you have to work with. I researched the two different types of beans and decided that the pole bean was the right decision for me. I had so many other low growing veggie plants that I didn’t have room for the bush bean variety, and it was more about being creative and getting the most use out of the space I had to work with. 

I have always loved the idea of vertical gardening so it was an easy decision. I built a small arbor using some old fencing that the previous owners left here and made the arbor connect between two 4x4 garden boxes. At first I wasn’t sure how it was going to come together but I love how it turned out in the end. 

In the beginning I started indoors with some seeds in pots and the first ones that I planted out were eaten up by some kind of pest, so I decided to try again and popped a ton of seeds in the ground at the base of the fencing to make up for what I had lost.  They were very slow to germinate as the shade from the arch was an issue at first but with time they took off and eventually filled in very nicely. 

I grew cantaloupe on the opposite side of the arch which did very well. Both were planted in separate boxes, so they did not share the same soil. Typically if you grow them in the same soil they will help each other.  Since beans add nitrogen to the soil and the cantaloupes thrive on nitrogen rich soil, they make good companion plants, but I did not plan it this way. They were grown in completely separate boxes but sharing the same trellis.

It was fun picking beans overhead and I loved how it created so much privacy from the front of the yard. I also added some small solar fairy lights which added a lot of charm to the garden in the evenings. I will definitely be growing beans again in the same box, but the cantaloupe will have a different home this summer in a location that gets more sun and heat. The beans attracted so many pollinators. There were a lot of hummingbirds, hawk moths and wasps. I was stung one day by a wasp when I was picking beans and that was not a fun experience. Got me right through my gardening gloves and was very painful!

The hummingbirds were very active and fun to watch as they zipped back and forth between the beans to the flowers. They also were fun to observe when they used the arch as a shelter and sat on the vines resting when they needed to. I really enjoy the wildlife that the garden brings and how we can get up close to learn more about these beautiful creatures.

  

The video below shows a hummingbird resting on one of the vines under the arch and he is grooming his feathers.

The beans that I grew in the photos above are Blue Lake Pole Beans from Botanical Interests