Growing Organic Beans
Green Beans

Vegetable Gardening: Growing Organic Beans

Beans are among the most popular vegetables and are easy to grow in your vegetable garden.  Grown in a wide range of climates, varieties come in crisp pods and protein rich types for drying.

Types of Beans to Try in Your Vegetable Garden:

  • Green Beans or Snap Beans:  These beans are the most widely grown and come in bush or pole varieties.  Bush types are convenient and fast-maturing, but pole beans take up less space.
  • Dry Beans: These protein rich, high fiber beans are easy to dry and store for low-cost healthy entrees'.
  • Scarlet Runner Beans:  Attract bees and hummingbirds to your garden by planting these attractive and colorful beans.  The pods from these beans can be eaten while young and tender or allowed to dry before harvesting the mature beans.  More mature beans contain higher protein.
  • Lima Beans:  These beans can tolerate higher humidity and heat and they also resist heavy insect attacks.  Lima beans are an excellent source of protein.

Growing and Fertilizing Beans With organic worm Castings™ and VermaPlex®

  • Sow your bean seeds after soil temperatures range between 60 and 79 degrees.  Stagger-plant bush beans for extended harvesting.
  • Beans benefit from fertile soil.  But, once established, they manufacture most of the nitrogen they need (beans are "nitrogen-fixing").  So go easy on the fertilizer.  Slow-release organic fertilizers like worm castings work especially well for beans of all varieties. 
  • In the beginning, give your beans a jump start by providing them with  nitrogen-fixing bacteria.  VermaPlex® enhances these beneficial microbes by balancing your garden soil.
  1. Mix in Black Castings™ into your garden soil at a rate of 1 pound per 50 square feet.
  2. Apply VermaPlex® at a rate of 80:1 (80 parts water to 1 part VermaPlex®) when seeds are planted.
  3. At first trifoliate, apply VermaPlex® at a rate of 40:1.
  4. At first bloom, apply VermaPlex® at a rate of 20:1.
  5. At pod initiation, apply VermaPlex®  at a rate of 20:1.
"VermaPlex® can be applied as a drench or as a foliar spray."