It has been an odd year in many places, largely du to the weather. It may be too hot for the beans to mature properly. Too high heat can effectively stifle these and a few other plants. Kentucky Blues in particular are sensitive to cold—but generally that refers to frost-level cold. You say you have been planting beans for years. In the same place/soil? Failure to rotate crops (or change the soil) can affect performance in a way that no amount of fertilizer can override. Finally, while your intentions are good re watering, does the soil get a chance to dry out? That’s almost as imporant to the plant’s success as enough water. We hope something suggests a remedy.

You don’t identify the type of beans you’re growing, but generally speaking, if your beans seemed to be bursting out of their casing/pod, you waited too long to pick them. The beans come soon after the flowers and you have to check at least every other day to check their progress. Then, when the beans form, you can harvest at almost any time. (There are no hard and fast rules. Your seed packet sometimes gives a suggested mature size.) Small, “immature” beans will be tender; older ones—like those you picked—not so much. They are still edible, though; you can just cook them a little longer.

As for the white coloration, that sounds like disease, possibly white mold. It’s not necessarily your fault, especially if your garden/area has experienced a lot of rain and temps have been cool. (You do not say where you are.) The plants may be a bit too close together, inhibiting air circulation, but the mold is due to rain, there’s not much you can do. Discard the plants and beans in trash, not compost.

Yum! These are called “the caviar of beans” in some circles. We’ve not grown them but now want to! Thanks for posting, Joel, and for your service. We hope someone will share their experience with these beautiful beans.

Blue beans would be fun but no, that will not happen. Each variety will retain its distinct color.

If you believe that the flies are fungus gnats, that indicates moisture. Sometimes they pop up after overwatering and/or poor drainage. To control, let the soil dry out down to 1 or 2 inches, and if your plants can stand it, do that between each watering. Yellow sticky traps will lure the adults, helping to prevent the females from laying more eggs. The adults do not damage the plants, but the larvae can. If your room is humid with no ventilation, then you might want to open the vent to allow some air circulation (which helps to prevent diseases, too), as long as the vent is not allowing very cold or hot air to come in. Hope this helps!

Hi, Jim: Thanks for the great question. Just leave your poor beans alone, will ya? Nothing much needs to be done to bush beans, but indeed you may find that once you have picked a crop, if you cut back to just above the growth nodes, they may still produce beans again in the same season. Nothing beantured, nothing gained, so give it a try in some places!

Beans are usually started in ground; that is, seeds are planted directly, not started and transplanted. But these days, some nurseries are offering almost everything/anything as seedlings.

You do not indicate your region/are so unless you are in an extreme weather are, where your indoor conditions are significantly different from those outdoors, we recommend planting the seedlings … asap. The flower buds will produce the bean pods. You would be wiser to leave them one. The plants should get bushier as the mature/grow.

You do not indicate where you are, and maturity is an estimate, generally speaking. Conditions can vary…and so it may be here. You are only six weeks into an estimated two month maturity period. Don’t worry; give the plants more time.

Yes, beans are best planted in the ground or in the container where they will live. Plant some new beans seeds in a different container and also among the beans that are dying. Some of the poorly looking beans may survive.

If you planted red swan bush beans they are not going to be very tall. Let them grow and you should be getting a nice harvest. Plant some more beans every two or three weeks for a continuous harvest.

Bean rust is a fungal disease that can attack bean plants, forming orange, brown, or reddish pustules under leaves or on pods or stems. Leaves will turn yellow and fall off. It can spread rapidly, especially in humid/wet weather, by air or splashing water. The old saying is probably referring to the fact that it is best to harvest beans when the weather is dry, to help avoid spreading any rust fungus (or other diseases).

Do you have supports? Beans are shallow-rooted plants and can't keep them selves upright with out supports.
If seedlings fall over (and die), then that's the work of cutworms.

Hi, Josie, Even before finishing reading, the first question that comes to mind is, are you rotating your crops? It's sometimes possible to get "good" crops in the same soil (area of your garden) one or two or even three years, but with each repeat year, quality slips. And the slippage accummulates. Holes in pods and hollowed seeds/beans are also caused by corn earworms and Lcyaenid pod borers—grub-like caterpillars that become small butterflies. Collect and destroy infected pods. Control with Bacillis thuringeniensis, an insecticide. And rotate.

First make sure the soil is well drained and that the beans get lots of sun. Beans need rich soil so adding compost around the plants may help. Mosaic viruses and other diseases can also cause yellow leaves.

It sounds like you did everything you could to coddle the seeds. The days to germination on some bush beans are 7 to 14 days. If the soil was a little cool (under 60F) that can delay germination. You might just wait a week longer to make sure--it could be that they are just taking a little more time to get up to speed. Past then, however, you might check one of your plantings as a sample for any seed rot or insect/disease damage.

You can certainly add soil to the plants if the roots are becoming exposed from erosion or the plants are flopping over. I'm thinking, though, that if your plants are doing nicely right now, you might not want to cover the plant stems with more soil, as that can encourage diseases and insects. (In future plantings, you can use the hilling method by mounding the soil and sowing bean seeds in the mound.)

The usual reason for beans that are light green or even yellow is that they are not getting enough warmth and sun. Has your weather been cool? The beans should recover.
Also, beans often go through a period of yellowing shortly after germination because they're using up all the nutrients. A nitrogen deficiency causes leaves and plants to be light green or yellow. It's best to add a light application of nitrogen.

We just use a soap spray to control insects on beans and most vegetables. There are different recipes. Here's one: First, mix a cup of veggie oil with a tablespoon liquid dishwashing detergent. Then use one and a half teaspoons of the oil-detergent mixture for each cup of water. Only spray when you see bugs and only in the mornings or you may get leaf burn.

If you want to have beans continuously through the growing season, you would need to plant more beans every few weeks.

Tobacco mosaic disease can affect a number of plants. Sanitation is the key to keeping it from spreading. Remove any plants showing signs of the disease and sterilize garden equipment. It is always best to not smoke while working in the garden.

It's hard to know what it might be without a photo. The rainiy/humid conditions would seem to encourage a fungal disease. Some fungal growths aren't as fuzzy as, say, what you might find on old food. Downy mildew is common on beans--could it be that? Powdery mildew does better in cool weather, but it might be a possibility. Rust can sometimes start out whitish. For more information about bean diseases in your area, you might be interested in this from the Alabama Cooperative Extension:
 
http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/...
 
It doesn't quite sound like insect egg clusters, or residue from pesticides, salts, etc. For further advice, you might ask a local nursery or call your county's Cooperative Extension:
 
http://www.almanac.com/content...
 
 

Hi, Daily, Thanks for helping these friends!

Hi, Ken, We are huge proponents of aged cow manure, but sometimes even we can use too much of a good thing. Do a soil test to check the pH. You can do this with the beans in the ground. Then amend accordingly. The potential nutrient imbalances are many, so see what you're dealing with for soil content/value first, then look into additives.
The test is quick, easy, and inexpensive. A nursery, garden store, or coop extension should be able to help you—help you get one, read it, and resolve the matter.
Hope this helps. There's nothing like fresh beans.

Test you soil to make sure it has the right pH. Lime will make it more alkaline--don't add any more unless the soil is more acidic than optimum. Beans like it slightly acidic to around neutral, depending on the type: around 6.0 to 7.5. Also make sure that your seeds are viable (new seed packets would be fine). Cold soil will slow germination, and some bean varieties will take longer than others to sprout. Lots of water or rain can rot the seeds. Also, when mulching before seeds sprout, you might want to provide only about a 1/4 inch layer (or avoid the actual spots where the seeds are planted); otherwise, the seeds may have trouble pushing through (when plants establish, you can provide a thicker layer), and the soil might be kept cooler than optimum for sprouting. Or, you could just avoid mulching until after the seeds have sprouted and become more hardy. For grass clippings, let them brown and dry before applying them to the vegetable bed, and avoid those clippings from lawns treated with pesticides.

It depends on the insect and the damage. Some insects lay eggs in the leaves and the larvae will hatch inside (leaf miners), or spider mites weave webs on them. In those cases, where the insect would remain on the leaf and you can't remove the insect, remove the leaf. However, it sounds like yours have been damaged by, as you say, snails and tomato worms and perhaps other caterpillars, and/or maybe a beetle (such as a bean leaf beetle). These will wander over several leaves or plants. If you don't see signs of eggs (or if you do, you can knock them off), and the leaf appears to be coping (healthy green), then you should probably leave it be. (If they are clearly dying, though, then remove them to avoid diseases invading.)
 
If this were a disease, however, especially a virus, it sometimes would be best to remove the affected leaves to help prevent spreading.
 
If there are too many damaged leaves, or too many removed, the plant would suffer, as it wouldn't be able to make enough food.
 

Did you try contacting the source of your seeds to ask what type/variety they are? Pole beans can grow to 5 to 8 feet; they are essentially "born to run."
You could try topping them off, a little at a time/everyday or two, rather that a long-length pruning. Beans are usually self-pollinating, so give them awhile and see what happens.
BTW, it's early in season, so you should also consider growing some bush beans. These would mature at a manageable height.

The beans will slow down after a while and it is always a good idea to sow more. Some gardeners plant a new row every 3 to 4 weeks to have a nice supply of fresh beans throughout the season.

"String" are usually "bush" beans, so assuming that's the case, pods usually follow flowers. It's not possible to give you an exact answer because we do not know where you are or the variety of bean, so consider this:
• the bean pods may appear soon; check the variety's maturity date and compare with the date on which you planted
• a review of sources suggest that sometimes weather conditions—cool temps and/or humidity—can inhibit growth.
• check for pests: some bugs can devastate bean crops
• are the beans growing in the same spot that you grew them in the previous season? that is, are you rotating crops? failure to do so could inhibit successful maturity.
We hope this helps to solve the problem.
 

Beans are a warm season crop and grow best when temps are about 65° to 85°F. To grow well just about anywhere, beans need full sun and rich, composted soil.
The soil temp for germination is at least 55°F, so you can probably plant any time now. Bush beans may be the easiest: they grow compactly, usually no more than a couple of feet high and many arieties are highly productive. Pole beans grow up (and up) and so need support—sometimes strong support, as the vines can reach six feet or more. The height might make them easier to reach and pick—you decide.
Consider the time-maturity-period of the variety of bean you want to plant, no matter whether bush or pole.
Finally, if you have a garden and are introducing beans to it and want to continue to do that, be aware of the need to rotate your crops to minimize pests (up here, Mexican bean beetles can devastate a crop before pods even set) and help to improe soil nutrition. (The 2014 Almanac has a feature on crop rotation.)
We hope this helps!

We harvest beans when they are almost daily to encourage production; if you allow pods to ripen fully, the plants will stop producing. It's really just a living organism's desire to reproduce. Some of our gardeners take it a step farther and give the beans a "haircut" by chopping them back a few inches to stimulate more growth.

Sometimes bush beans will indeed "take a break." Have you had some heat stress? If so, just keep watering them and they may start again when it's a bit cooler. You can also try some successive planting next year and stagger plantings; perhaps when one set of beans is taking a break, the other set will keep going.

A couple of things my be going on here: You may have over fertilized, esp with nitrogen, which aids in rapid growth. A too-rich compost/manure can also bring about this situation. High temps, including at night, and low humidity or uneven/inconsistent moisture may have caused the beans to not set pods. Also, your beans need 8 to 10 hours of sunlight.
We hope this helps.

Slugs and rabbits are the most common culprits. For slugs: Go out at night with a flashlight and you'll see 'em! Look at how the leaf is chewed and you can figure it out. Here's a good page on bean pests: http://ipm.ncsu.edu/ag295/html...

That's a tough one. Thoughts: contaminated manure? Weedkiller? Aphids? Bean mosaic virus? Crop rotation? Are you using new seed each year and keeping it in a cool (below 50oF) dry place until planting time? We'd suggest you send a sample to your Texas cooperative service for a local diagnosis.

Pole beans pods are ready for harvest about 7 to 14 days
after flowering. You harvest before the pods are fully mature. The pods should be full size with small seeds, and firm, crisp flesh when picked. Pick regularly as the plant will flower and mature the pods for 5 to 6 weeks on pole types. Pole beans generally produce pods over a very long time period so only one or two plantings are necessary each year for continuous production.

According to the Louisiana extension services the best time to plant pole beans is 2/15 to 5/15 for spring and 8/10 to 8/31 for fall. They take 60 to 66 days to harvest. If your climate, however, is cooler this year, you could probably stretch it.

Oh, no! Grasshoppers are a gardener's plague. If there are only a few, you can/should pick them off by hand. And, if they are not too many in number, you can cover the plants; but it's not easy to cover pole beans growing upright. Maybe you could try hanging row covers in such a way as to stay in place and not blow around (their blowing around wouldn't serve much purpose).
If the grasshoppers are in migration, in swarms, there is almost nothing you can do.
Some sources recommend growing and maintaining tall grass of lush green plants around the perimeter of your garden as a diversion, or "trap crop." But you must let is grow untended/uncut, and do not water or the grasshoppers will flee to your garden.
It sounds like maybe you do not have swarms of grasshoppers. Try catching and eliminating them individually as well as the trap crop.
Best wishes!

We have a nice article about companion planting called The Three Sisters. It describes how to plant corn, beans and squashes together in your garden. Please see
almanac.com/content/companion-planting-three-sisters