Increase Your Green Bean Crop (Quick Tip)


Join our large (and growing) community of food-lovers on Facebook. We are regularly inspired by members of this positive community. Come be inspired too.


Don't miss it -- Get Your Sexy Back -- the epic summit on getting more mojo, naturally. ;) Click here.

Many consider green beans to be America’s second favorite garden crop, after tomatoes. If this is true for you, then you probably want the maximum crop possible, don’t you? I know I do!

Here are two simple approaches to getting more beans than you’ve dreamed possible.

Plant Both Bush Beans and Pole Beans

  • The bush beans produce earlier than the pole beans. The beans tend to come on all at once and the the plant is finished. By then, the pole beans start to set.

  • Pole beans take time to make vines (up to 10 feet worth), so the beans come on later. Beans will set for 1-2 months depending on your weather. That’s a lot of bean-y goodness!

Space-Limited Gardens: Multiple Pole Bean Crops

  • Plant a succession of bush beans 2 weeks apart.

  • If you plan to be gone for a few weeks, then figure that into your plantings. There is no need to have beans setting when no one is home to enjoy them.
  • Get a jump on the season by starting bean seeds indoors or in a green house. Keep those seedlings warm! They are heat lovers. Do not set the seedlings in the garden until the soil temperature is about 70 degrees.

Subscribe to our Traditional Foods feed via email and access to the digital books in our kitchen tool kit.

Read more here about what is in the tool kit to date at the Traditional Foods website.

Enter your Email

Preview | Powered by FeedBlitz


Starting Tomato Seeds — Use a Heating Pad (Quick Tip)

To have access to that amazing range of heirloom tomato varieties, you have to start your plants from seed. If you wait to pick out heirlooms from a garden center in the late spring, you could be sorely disappointed from the lack of variety. Here’s the rub: Tomato seeds germinate at temperatures between 70 and…

3 Reasons to Start Vegetable Seeds Indoors

Reasons to Start Seeds Indoors from Traditional-Foods.com

Why would you go to the trouble of starting your vegetables indoors from seed? Three very good reasons. Variety When you select your own varieties from the many different seeds available, you find a treasury of vegetables that you’ll not find in the market. You can be eating red carrots, watermelon radishes, pineapple tomatoes, and…

Garden Trellises for Climbing Vines

Swingset in Garden @ Traditional-Foods.com

As you build your garden it is important to consider the needs of your future plants themselves. Winter squash, climbing beans, and vining berries need room to roam. If you don’t plan their roaming, you may end up with vining plants in inconvenient areas. Plan gardening trellises for these climbers with a mind toward sunlight…

Harvesting Butternut Squash

If you’re growing butternut squash then you most likely have a number of them to harvest and store for the winter. If you are first-time grower of this vegetable you may be scratching your head, wondering just when to harvest. Here is some butternut savvy. Watch the stems. When they begin to turn brown and…

Ripening Tomatoes (Quick Tip)

ripening-tomatoes-1

As temperatures cool down in the fall and you know that the tomatoes set on your plants will not ripen, it is time to pick them green and either cook them green or let them ripen off the vine. We used to ripen tomatoes on our window sill and are here to report that’s a…

Extending The Summer Growing Season In Your Garden

extended-growing-season

I believe I may have cracked the code for getting a full summer harvest. In the last two seasons the temperatures were so erratic that our usual growing season was shortened by at least six weeks. If you’ve gardened for decades and suddenly the rules get changed, the frustration is big. This time last year…

Growing Peppers: Choosing Varietes, Planting, & Preserving Peppers

growing-peppers-250

Growing your own peppers not only gives you the opportunity to have organic peppers, but it offers the opportunity to grow pepper varieties you will not find at the grocery and that you may not find in a farmers market. Some pepper varieties shine when eaten raw, others when fried or roasted. Grow your own…

Growing Tomatoes: Planting Seeds, Seedlings, Staking, Harvesting Tomatoes

growing-tomatoes-800

Nothing shouts summer like a vine-ripened tomato. Heaven may just be biting into a ripe tomato, still warm from the sun. Imagine a harvest basket loaded with tomatoes of all shapes, sizes, and colors — from your own garden. Tomato plants are rather easy to grow but there are a few things you should know…

Growing Potatoes: Why & How To Grow Your Own Potatoes

If there is any vegetable you can count on finding at the grocery, it is the humble potato. Have you ever heard of the potato season coming to an end like you do with garden tomatoes or corn? Potatoes are available year-round so why would you use precious garden space to grow potatoes? There are…

Extending The Summer Growing Season In Your Garden

extended-growing-season

I believe I may have cracked the code for getting a full summer harvest. In the last two seasons the temperatures were so erratic that our usual growing season was shortened b…[more]

Buying And Saving Garden Seed

garden-seeds-800

One of the most compelling reasons for growing your own fruit and vegetables is that you can use open-pollinated seed. An open pollinated seed can be saved from the new plant …[more]

Know Your Planting Seasons

onions-500

In days long past, the produce available was local and seasonal. There were no refrigerated trucks to haul spinach from California to a New York grocery. There were no shippin…[more]

Mulch: Garden Mulch For Garden Health

garden-mulch

Mulch is any organic or inorganic material used to cover the soil of a garden bed or garden pathway. Mulching does take a little time and effort, so its wise to be sold on the…[more]

How To Compost To Build Rich Soil

how to compost bins

If you want glorious plants and abundant crops, then you want compost. If you want to turn unworkable hard pan into the Garden of Eden, then you need compost. If you have kitc…[more]

Soil Building Steps for Gardening Success

soil-building-water-500

A lush summer garden and an abundant harvest begins with soil building that occurs in the winter or in the early spring. Without healthy soil, your yields will be lackluster, …[more]