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Nurturing your Green Beans

Gardening Guide: Grow Great Green Beans

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Nurturing your Green Beans

By Norann Oleson

Watering green beans

Watering green beans

Once your green beans are established, keep them watered consistently, especially when flowering as that keeps the flowers coming. Green beans need 1 to 2 inches of water per square foot a week, including rainwater. Absent rain, water weekly and deeply.

Water on sunny days, preferably in the morning, at the base of the plants. This will allow excess water to evaporate and will keep the water off the foliage, helping to avoid diseases. In fact, try to stay out of the garden when the soil is very wet as tramping around can spread fungal diseases.

Mulch is helpful to help conserve water and deter weeds. Shredded leaves or straw works well for green beans.

Weeding

Weeding beans

Weeding beans

When it comes to weeding around your green beans, early and often is best. If you’ve used weed-free soil and well-rotted organic matter, and laid down mulch, you shouldn’t have a big weed problem.

Properly preparing your soil is an excellent preventive measure against the emergence of weeds. When you till or cultivate the area where you’ll plant your green beans, remove weeds and debris. You’ll likely find that the first few weeks after planting are the only time you’ll be pulling up weeds around your green beans.

If weeds spring up around your green bean plants during the growing season, work the soil around the base of the plants gently. Go only deep enough to kill the weeds and not damage the plant’s tender roots.

Fertilizer

As legumes, green beans fix their own nitrogen, so their fertilizer needs aren’t voracious. Avoid using a high-nitrogen fertilizer, otherwise you’ll get a lot of foliage and few beans. Applying a side dressing of organic manure halfway through the season should suffice.

How often do you have to fertilize or water your green beans? Do you have any particular challenges growing green beans? Please tell us your tips for nurturing healthy green beans.

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Tags

beans, fertilizer, organic manure

Comments
  • Michelle S. February 25, 2022

    Can u use chicken fertilizer or worm castings?, when planting green beans

    Reply
    • Norann O. February 28, 2022

      Michelle – Great question. As chicken manure tends to be high in nitrogen (which may lead to lots of green bean foliage and not so many actual beans) and it needs to be well aged before it’s ready to use, you might want to go with worm castings. Worm castings are highly nutrient, gentler on the roots and should provide the slow release fertilization that your beans will appreciate.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Curator’s Corner
  • Introduction
  • Feature Articles

  • Growing Zones for Green Beans
  • Types of Green Beans
  • Growing Beans from Seeds and Seedlings
  • Where to Grow Green Beans
  • Growing Green Beans in Containers
  • Nurturing your Green Beans
  • Harvesting your Green Beans
  • Dealing with Green Bean Diseases
  • Dealing with Green Bean Pests
  • Essential Tools and Equipment for Growing and Enjoying Green Beans
  • Pole Beans vs. Bush Beans: Which Are Better to Grow?
  • 10 Green Bean Companion Plants and 5 To Avoid Planting Nearby
  • Plant Profiles

  • Scarlet Runner Snap Pole Beans
  • Blue Lake Stringless Snap Pole Beans
  • Kentucky Wonder Yellow Wax Pole Beans
  • Dragon’s Tongue Romano Bush Green Beans
  • Kentucky Wonder 125 Long-Podded Bush Green Beans
  • Mascotte Filet Bush Green Beans
  • Tendergreen Snap Bush Green Beans
  • Recipes

  • Chicken and Green Bean Stir-Fry
  • Green Bean, Potato, and Bacon Soup
  • Salade Niçoise with Haricot Verts
  • Green Beans Almondine
  • Traditional Italian Green Beans
  • Healthy Green Bean Casserole
  • Perfect Roasted Green Beans
  • Additional Articles

  • Nutrition Facts about Green Beans
  • Health Benefits of Green Beans
  • Resources about Green Beans
  • Green Bean Glossary
  • Related Articles

  • 7 Types of Beans to Grow to Add Color to Your Vegetable Garden
  • Roasted Lemon-Garlic Green Beans Recipe
  • Succession Planting Strategies for Extending Your Green Bean Harvest
  • Bush Beans vs. Pole Beans: To Climb or Not to Climb?
  • Bean There, Done That: How to Save Green Bean Seeds
  • Getting Your Pole Beans to Reach Greater Heights

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