Growing Vegetable Beans - 1

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Growing vegetable beans near St. Petersburg

Beans are one of my addictions. In the mid-eighties, many imported colorful packets of seeds appeared on sale, including peas, beans, beans and cowpea, and naturally, as an experienced gardener, it became interesting to me to try them in the beds.

I already had some experience in growing grain and vegetable peas, black beans (Russian), but these were plantings, as they say, for a variety of crops. Out of curiosity, I began to look for information about legumes: I "studied" literature on vegetable growing, encyclopedias, articles from magazines and felt an interest in the legume family. VIR specialists helped me a lot in deepening my knowledge of beans and peas.

From literature I learned that in America before the arrival of Europeans, beans were the second food plant after corn. Nowadays, besides America, beans are very popular in Georgia and Bulgaria. It is very valuable that legume seeds have a long shelf life. Plants of this group are mainly self-pollinated, unpretentious and unique in their own way: in addition to the fact that a fairly high yield of legumes is a source of high-quality vegetable protein (up to 30%), they have a unique ability, using nodule bacteria, to bind air nitrogen into a form assimilable by plants, allowing growing to save on nitrogen fertilizers. In addition, the root residues and green mass of legumes remaining after harvesting are the most valuable component in composting, and yellow-fruited and curly forms of beans, sweet peas,lupines are quite decorative.

I began to accumulate my experience in growing beans, beans and peas by purchasing packages of seeds from the well-known German company Maier's in its time. As I remember now, these were Wachs Beste von Allen and Odeon. At work, a familiar translator translated a fairly detailed description of the advantages of varieties and the features of their agricultural technology, and I began experiments. The agrotechnology turned out to be quite simple, and the results exceeded all expectations: from one plant, up to 20 pods of yellow and green beans of excellent taste (after cooking) were obtained.

I was very pleased with the results the next year, and in subsequent years I tried to acquire all kinds of beans, beans and peas, both domestic and imported, from companies in Germany, the USA, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia, and worked out the technology that was optimal for me and my conditions. growing legumes. In total, I managed to get almost the entire assortment of Maier's legumes (almost 50 items) and about 30 varieties of legumes from the USA, England and Germany. There were only a few Russian varieties of legumes on sale at that time.

Ultimately, after several years of testing, I found for myself that:

• bush forms of vegetable beans are rather unpretentious to growing conditions and can be successfully cultivated in our conditions by gardeners;
• bush vegetable beans in the conditions of the Leningrad region can yield beans (pods) up to 4 kg or more per square meter;
• in terms of taste, the first and second bean dishes are incomparable, very satisfying and dietary;
• the seeds of even reputable firms may not germinate (possibly due to expired seeds or improper storage by sellers), without indicating on the packages of insufficient quality;
• American bean seeds may not yield shoulder blades due to sensitivity to day length;
• German and Dutch varieties are less thermophilic than American ones, and they do better in the Leningrad region;
• for food in our conditions, it is more profitable to grow bush forms of asparagus vegetable beans;
• from bush beans, the most original and decorative are yellow (waxy) varieties of vegetable beans with amber or egg-yellow pods;

• the best in terms of yield and quality of beans (pods) from foreign varieties of bush beans are:

  • wax (yellow) Washs Beste von Allen and Minidor from Maier's,
  • Pencil Pod Black Wax from NK (USA),
  • Golden Sands from Ferry Morse Seeds (USA) and Golde Rod from Fregonia Seeds (USA),
  • Oil king of the firm Sem (Holland),
  • green asparagus (especially tender) Odeon and Fin de Bagnols from Maier's;
• bean seeds are very diverse: white, yellow, greenish, brown, red, black - both monochromatic and with spots of a different color, marble, rounded, flat, thin, large;
• neither pods (shoulder blades) nor beans are eaten raw.

Of course, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to get a favorite variety or a novelty of bean breeding, unlike tomatoes and cucumbers. Recently, the assortment of seeds of imported beans has sharply decreased on sale, but the proposed list of varieties of beans seeds of domestic firms "SeDeK", "Aelita", "Sort-Semovoshch", "NK" has significantly expanded.

Recently, I had a change in the experimental site: instead of loam in the Volkhovsky district, a low-lying sandy site appeared in the Kirovsky district of the Leningrad region, and in the new conditions I had to unravel the secrets of growing magical legumes.

In 2003, I tried to grow bush asparagus (vegetable) beans of several varieties of the firms "SeDeK", "Sortsemovoshch", "Lilia", "Aelita" and others in the Kirov region. Below is a brief description of the studied varieties according to advertising descriptions on the packages.

Saksa ("Our Garden" company) was chosen as a standard, since this variety is practically zoned and quite popular. Plant up to 40 cm high. Fruits 10-12 cm long are green. This variety is unpretentious to growing conditions. High-yielding.

Processor ("Sortsemovosch"). Medium early, 40-50cm high, tender beans, no fiber, 10-1Zcm long. Requires heat and light. Harvesting 50-55 days after germination.

Cropper type ("Sortsemovosch") (there was no description on the package).

Container ("Sortsemovosch"). Medium early grade. The plant is up to 40-50 cm high. The beans are tender, without fibers, 10-13 cm long. The plant is demanding for heat and light. Harvesting 50-55 days after germination.

Laura (Chipollino, N. Novgorod). Mid-season variety. From germination to technical ripeness 65 days. Shrub, high, compact. Pods 11-13 cm long, up to 9 mm wide, light golden in color, without fiber. The seeds are white. The beans are concentrated at the top of the plant. The taste is high. The variety is resistant to anthracnose and bacteriosis.

Valya ("Our Garden"). Early, bush. Plant height 45 cm. Fruits are round, straight, even, 11-12 cm long, dark green in color.

Allure ("SeDeK" series "Favorite"). An early ripe high-yielding variety of asparagus vegetable beans. The bush is compact, medium-branched, 30-40 cm high. From germination to technical ripeness 55-65 days. Pods are long, narrow (12-13 cm), dark green, numerous, without parchment layer, not coarse. The variety is resistant to common mosaic, brown spot and anthracnose.

Nerina (German variety "SeDeK" series "Favorite"). Medium-early high-yielding variety 40-50 cm high. The beans are long, narrow (11-14x0.8-0.9 cm), ripen together and remain dark green for a long time. The variety is resistant to common mosaic and anthracnose.

Katya ("Alena" - Moscow). Medium early grade. The plant is up to 45 cm high. The beans are green, cylindrical, slightly curved. Seeds are elliptical, white. Variety value: high productivity, resistance to fungal diseases. Harvesting 53-55 days after germination.

Panther ("SeDeK"). Mid-early variety of asparagus beans. From germination to technical ripeness 46-50 days, to ripening 75-80 days. Bush plant. The beans are bright yellow, tender. Resistant to anthracnose and bacteriosis.

The oil king ("Aelita"). Very fruitful, tender pods, excellent taste. Early ripening variety, plant up to 40 cm high, golden yellow pods, soft, up to 30 cm long. Differs in abundant fruiting.

Laura ("SeDeK"). Early ripening, 53-63 days, high-yielding variety with amicable crop formation. The bush is compact, medium branched, up to 40 cm high. The beans are yellow, narrow, 11-13 cm long, numerous, of excellent taste. The collection period is 15-20 days. Recommended for canning, freezing, cooking. Use unripe beans.

Jubilee 287 ("Search"). Early maturing, the period from germination to technical ripeness is 43-53 days. Compact, up to 25-45 cm high, beans without parchment, straw yellow, flat-round, with a slightly curved tip. Mature seeds are elongated, kidney-shaped, light pink with brown strokes.

Fantasy ("SeDeK"). An early ripe high-yielding variety of asparagus vegetable beans of foreign selection. From germination to technical ripeness 55-65 days. The plant is bushy, compact, up to 40 cm high. The beans are narrow, 10-13 cm long, dark green, sugar-colored, tender. Seeds are oblong khaki color. Stable yield.

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