Make your garden full of beans
Beans are an easy and rewarding vegetable to grow. They germinate quickly, are relatively pest-free, and there are multiple varieties worth considering.
Whether you want to eat them fresh or dry them for winter soups and stews, and homemade baked beans, beans are one of the most versatile veges to grow. Plus, climbing beans have a long cropping period as plants produce for up to three months.
Sow seeds: October to January in warm areas; November to January in cooler areas.
Transplant seedlings: October to February in warm areas; November to January in cooler areas.
Position: Grow in partial sun. It can cope with a little shade.
Harvest: 8-12 weeks
Good for beginners.
Across most of the country you can plant and sow beans from mid-spring until earlysummer, but in cooler places hold off until all risk of frost has passed (if you grow the perennial ‘‘Scarlet Runner’’ beans, when you see the plants pop back up out of the ground, you’ll know it’s warm enough to start your other beans from seed).
Beans require soil to be 18C or warmer for optimum germination, so if there’s any chance of a late cold spell, wait.
The large seed is easy to handle, and this is a great crop to sow direct so your beans grow rapidly from the get-go.
But if you have problems with slugs, snails or birds attacking your baby bean seedlings, start beans in trays and transplant when well established, or buy punnets of seedlings, which can be planted from midspring to mid-summer in warm places and late spring to early summer in cool ones.
Direct sow beans about 2-3cm deep.
Space climbing beans about 10-15cm apart at the base of a wall, trellis or wigwam. Space dwarf beans about 7-10cm apart in rows about 50cm apart. Beans germinate quickly, and you should see them popping up in a week or so. Bean seeds are often eaten by birds, rats and mice, so overplant the seeds and thin after germination, or protect newly planted seeds with cloches. With dwarf beans, which produce all their pods very quickly, sow another few seeds every few weeks to ensure a steady supply.
Before you plant anything, it helps to know what kind of bean you are growing: especially whether it’s climbing or dwarf. Most beans grown in New Zealand are cultivars of Phaseolus vulgaris, the socalled French beans, including butter beans, purple or blue beans, round French beans, flat Italian beans and drying beans like borlotti and cannellini.
Climbing beans produce over a long season and are extremely productive. You do need to give them something to scramble up though, and have enough vertical space.
Dwarf beans, however, can be grown in smaller spaces, including containers. They tend to produce all their pods over a short period, so to extend your harvest, sow a few more every three or four weeks over the growing season.
There are also perennial scarlet runners (Phaseolus coccineus), which are less varied. The majority produce hairy pods on tall-growing vines.
They die down in the winter but pop up in spring. Replace every three or so years as they do lose vigour.
Beans like free-draining soil in a moderately hot part of the garden. In cooler places, give them a spot with full day sun, but in warmer places they might benefit from a little shade during the hottest part of the day. Choose a location that is sheltered from wind too, especially for tall climbing beans, as the stalks can be brittle.
Beans grow quickly and produce abundantly, so before planting mix compost, sheep pellets and slow-release fertiliser into the soil, and water well.
Climbing beans need to grow at the base of a frame, a trellis or a teepee. Ideally give them about 2m or more of height. When they reach the top they should be trained back down again or they will end up forming a tangled clump at the apex, shading development and providing shelter for pests. Regular picking of the early pods stimulates more flowers and more beans.
Dwarf beans will produce more quickly than climbing beans (in 8-10 weeks rather than 10-12), but each plant will only keep producing for about three or four weeks, so sow successively.
Support isn’t essential for these beans so they are a better choice if you are growing in containers or your garden is in a windy spot. You can plant them in rows or blocks, or pop them into any gaps. Again, pick the beans while they are young and tender, and before you can see the shape of the beans in the pod.
Apart from keeping the irrigation up, beans don’t really need a lot of extra care and attention as they grow but you can give them a boost with a side dressing of fertiliser or a fortnightly liquid plant food when they start flowering.
Climbing beans
‘‘Scarlet Runner’’ is (still) Kiwis’ favourite climbing bean. They are high-yielding, easy-care, pretty and perennial croppers. Just pick and eat while young and tender. Or try ‘‘Stringless Scarlet’’, an improved variety with pods that remain stringless until maturity.
‘‘Shiny Fardenlosa’’ produces loads of smooth, shiny long pods. For a classic French bean, opt for ‘‘Blue Lake Runner’’, which produced an average of 122 pods per plant in trials at Auckland Botanic Gardens, or the always prolific ‘‘King of the Blues’’. In the trials, pale green ‘‘Italian Flat Runner’’ produced an average of 107 pods per plant. These beans are as tender as snow peas, even when as long as your forearm.
‘‘Mā ngere Pole’’ is an heirloom favourite, named for the Auckland suburb where immigrant market gardeners once produced all sorts of fruit and vegetables. It is productive too; in the botanic trials it produced an average of 95 pods per plant. A Kiwi classic worth looking out for is ‘‘Climbing Dalmatian’’, with distinctive purple streaked pods, which came here with the early Dalmatian gum diggers. For colour, try the prolific ‘‘Climbing Purple’’ (179 pods per plant in the trials), or yellow ‘‘Climbing Butter’’, which is less productive but sweet enough to snack on raw.
Dwarf beans
Leading horticultural experts have almost unanimously named ‘‘Top Crop’’ as their favourite beans as the well-named dwarf French bean is fast to set fruit and produces heaps of slender, tender, tasty beans. For green beans, try ‘‘Dwarf French Hickok’’, which is high-yielding and diseaseresistant; crisp and tender ‘‘Chef’s Choice’’; or the so-called shoestring bean, ‘‘Fin de Bagnols’’, a naturally thin French heirloom.
For yellow dwarf beans, ‘‘Cherokee Wax’’ is firm and flavoursome, but don’t leave pods on the vine or they will dry out. ‘‘Berrgold Improved Dwarf’’, ‘‘Roquefort Dwarf’’, and ‘‘Golden Wax II’’ are all also recommended. For purple beans, try ‘‘Purple Tee Pee’’ or ‘‘Royalty Purple Pod’’. If you plan to grow enough beans to freeze for the year ahead, try ‘‘Freezer Slims’’ which has extra-long, flat pods ideal for angle slicing and freezing.
Dried beans
Most varieties of beans can be used as dried beans: just allow the pods to ripen on the plant until dry, then shell and store. But some beans are grown specifically for drying, such as speckled red Italian borlotti beans, which are available in climbing or semi-dwarf bush forms. ‘‘Cherokee Trail of Tears’’ was one of the stars of the trials, producing an average of 184 pods per plant. The 12-14cm dark green and purple pods are excellent fresh or shelled and the dried beans are as dark and shiny.
‘‘Climbing Selugia’’ has beautiful dried seeds that are near-black with creamy speckles, and produced 139 pods per plant in the trial. ‘‘Good Mother Stallard’’ (144 pods per plant) is a good allrounder for a small garden.
Beans are vulnerable to sap-sucking pests such as green vege bugs, aphids and whitefly, especially in hot weather or if the plants have been allowed to dry out. Caterpillars nibble on the pods and the leaves, and mites can appear in summer; both are more likely if it’s hot or too dry. Irrigation and mulch are key to avoiding as long as possible.
Beans suffer from a variety of fungal infections, especially if drainage and ventilation are poor, so avoid over-watering and overhead watering. If the temperature is too low, beans may fail to germinate or growth will be slow.
High temperatures can cause problems too, and if it gets very hot, beans will slow or even stop producing.