Green beans get a bad rap from many as their often first introduced to children as coming from a can having all their flavor destroyed. Fresh green beans on the other hand are wonderful, bright, and snappy. They cook extremely well and go with a lot of different foods as either a side or addition to the main course. In the garden green beans are plentiful producers and can be grown in either bush or pole bean varieties to give you options on how to utilize your space.
Green Bean Details
- Family: Fabaceae
- Growing Season: Spring
- Growing Zones: 3 through 10
- Spacing: 2-4 inches (5-10 cm) apart
- Seed to Harvest time: 50-55 days
- Indoor Starting: Not recommended
- Earliest Planting: After the last frost
- Watering: Water when soil is dry, keeping soil moist, but never wet. Do not over water. Green beans need about 1 inch of water a week.
- Sunlight Requirements: Full sun
- Planting: Plant seeds 1 inch (2.5 cm) deep. If planting pole bean varieties include a stake or trellis for plants to climb before they sprout. This helps prevent root disruption by having the trellis installed before the roots develop. Bush varieties do not require supports.
- Weeding: Weed frequently.
- Harvesting: Beans can be picked by hand with out fear of damaging the plant.
- Known Pests: Aphids, use insecticidal soap or introduce predatory insects where appropriate. Fungus (many types), use food safe fungicide. Spider mites, use neem oil.
More about Green Beans
Green Beans are a fantastic crop for any garden that is looking to produce a lot of highly nutritious food all at once. While you can stagger your planting a little if you start your plants early enough, they don’t take well to hot summers so you’ll likely end up with a large single harvest instead of many smaller ones. This isn’t a problem as green beans preserve well. While they can be canned, the canning process destroys a lot of their flavor. Green beans keep best when frozen (flash frozen if possible). Again, preservation of green beans will always be a flavor destroyer, so it’s best to enjoy what you can while they are fresh and portion out what you are going to save for the winter months as soon as possible to keep them as tasty as possible.
Green beans actually come in a huge array of types. These varieties can change a lot about the plant, but the major difference you’ll see will be between pole beans and bush varieties. The pole beans are a vining type plant and will climb up whatever you give them too. Because of this you need to keep pole beans away from other tall plants as they will latch onto them and strangle out whatever is growing nearby. The bush varieties don’t have this problem, but they aren’t always as prolific as the vining types, so you trade some production for simplicity.
Green Bean Tasting and Food Notes
Green beans are best enjoyed fresh. They can be steamed, sauteed, roasted, or baked. Green beans can be eaten raw, but this should be avoided as many varieties contain a compound that causes nausea and other symptoms. Our recommendation is to avoid eating raw green beans and opt to cook them instead. With that being said green beans don’t need to be cooked much to destroy the bad compounds in them and when cooked lightly they have a delightful snap to them that adds a good bit of texture to a meal.
Green beans are a semi-savory grassy tasting plant with a light mild bitterness that comes through. The flavor of over cooked green beans is very grassy and retains the bitter notes, which is why we don’t recommend canning green beans as it kills off any of the good qualities the food has from a flavor perspective. We also understand that growing food isn’t just about flavor for a homesteader so you do what you must to avoid wasting food.
Should I Grow Green Beans In My Garden?
Green beans are a great thing to grow if you want a easy to keep high yield plant. If you want a dead simple variety you should choose a bushing type plant, but even the vining ones aren’t too hard to keep. While they are a little temperamental when it comes to getting wet, it’s very easy to avoid dowsing the leaves in water and simply soak the soil instead.
If you like green beans, you should grow them. They don’t take up much space and with a minimal amount of care you can grow a great deal of them. As long as you are quick to preserve what you won’t eat right away you can even keep their flavor fresh and inviting throughout the year.