How To Plant Beans

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  • Author Janice Sherwood
  • Published April 23, 2009
  • Word count 1,244

Endless is the variety of sorts. Some are dwarfs, some climbers; but, the mode of propagating and cultivating is nearly the same in all, except that the dwarfs require smaller distances than the climbers, and that the latter are grown with poles, which the former are not.

In this fine country the seed is so good, the soil and climate so favorable to the plant, the use of the vegetable so general, the propagation and cultivation so easy, and so well understood, that little in detail need be said about them.

I prefer sowing the dwarfs in rows to sowing them in bunches or clumps. It is a great object to have them early, and, they may be had much earlier than they usually are with a little pains. It is useless to sow them while the ground is cold; for they will net grow till it be warm; but, there are means to be used to get them forwarder than the natural ground will pro duce them. If you have a glazed frame, or a hand glass or two, use one or the other in this case; but, if not, dig a hole and put in it, well shaken together, a couple of wheel barrows full of good hot dung; and lay some good rich mould upon it six inches thick.

Then lay on this some of the earliest sort of dwarf beans. Put them not more than an inch apart, and cover them with two inches of fine rich mould. Bend some rods over the whole, and put the ends of the rods in the ground; and, every evening, cover this sort of roof over with a bit of old carpet or sail cloth. In default of these, corn stalks may do. Do this when the winter frost is just got out of the ground, or soon after.

The beans will be up in a week's time; and, in about a fortnight afterwards, they will be fit to remove. The place for them is under a wall, a paling, or a hedge, facing the South. Prepare the ground well and make it rich. Take a spade and carry away a part of the beans at a time, and plant them at six inches asunder with as much earth about the roots as you can.

Plant them a little deeper than they stood in the bed. They are very juicy, and may have a little water given them as soon as planted. Shade them the first day, if the weather be warm and the sun out; and cover them every night till all frosts be over.

This is easily done, if against any sort of fence, by putting boards, one edge upon the ground and the other leaning against the fence; but, if you have no fence, and have to plant in the open ground, it will be best to plant in clumps, and flower pots put over the clumps will do for a covering.

In Long Island a clod or two, or a brick or two, laid by the side of the clumps, will hold up a large horse foot fish shell, which is an excellent covering. On the first of June, 1817, I saw a farmer at South Hempstead, covering his beans with burrdock leaves, while there were hundreds of horsefoot shells in his yard.

The dock leaf would wither in the day. A fresh supply must be had for the next night. This circumstance shows, however, how desirous people are to get this vegetable early; and, by the method that I have pointed out, it may be had fifteen days, at least, earlier than it generally is.

As to the main crop, it is by no means advisable to sow very early. If you do, the seed lies Ione in the ground, which is always injurious to this plant. The plants come up feebly.

The cold weather, that occasionally comes, makes them look yellow; and they, then, never produce a fine crop.

Of the various sorts of pole beans one sowing it enough; for, if you gather as the beans become fit for use, they continue bearing all through the summer, especially the Lima bean, which delights in heat, and for which no weather can be too dry; and which should never be sown till the ground be right warm.

The Dwarf sorts may be sown all summer, from the time that the ground becomes warm to within seven weeks of the time that the little frosts begin in the fall; for, they will, at this season, pro duce, for eating green, in six weeks from the day of sowing.

I sowed them on the 15th of August, and had several gatherings to eat green before the 2d of October when the first frost came. They were not cut up by the frost till the 17th of October; and they kept bearing till they were.

A row or two sown every fortnight, across one of the Plats will keep any family, however large, well supplied. And, perhaps twenty rows, across one of the Plats, for pole beans of all the sorts that are desired, will be more than sufficient.

It is best to sow several sorts of these; for some bear early and some later than others, As to the sorts of Kidney beans, they are, as I observed before, almost endless in number. I will, however, name a few: the Dun, or Drab colored dwarf bean, is the earliest.

The same ground will bear and ripen two crops in one year, the last from the seed of the first The Yellow; the Black; the Speckled; the Painted, white and red: these are all dwarfs; but there are a great many others.

Amongst runners, or polebeans, there are the Scarlet blossom, the seed of which is red and black and the seed pod rough. There is a White bean precisely like the former, except that the bean and blossom are white. The Case knife bean, which, in England, is called the Dutch runner: this is the best bean of all to eat green.

Then there is the Cranberry bean of various colors as to seed. The Lima bean, which is never eaten green (that is, the pod is never eaten,) and which is sometimes called the butter bean, has a broad, flat and thin seed of a yellowish white color.

This bean must never be sown till the ground is right warm. The other sorts will grow and bear well in England; but this sort will not. I raised good and ripe Indian Corn at Botley; but, I never could bring a Lima bean to perfection, though I put it in the hottest spot I could find, and though cucumbers produced very well in the natural ground at a yard or two from it.

The seed for sale is raised in this way even in England, where the climate is so cold and wet compared to this. The poling is a great plague and expense; and, if large quantities be raised, it may be dispensed with: nay, it may be dispensed with in a garden; for poles look ugly there; they intercept the view; and the addition they make to the crop is not a compensation even for ill look, especially under this bright sun, where the ground is almost constantly dry.

Let it be observed, that every sort of Kidney bean must have rich ground to produce a large crop.

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