Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) / A Practical Guide to the Making of Home Grounds and the Growing of Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables for Home Use

by L. H. Bailey

(5) The Broad beans, of which the Windsor is the common type. These are much grown in the Old World for stock feed, and they are sometimes used for human food. They grow to one strict, central, stiff stalk, to a height of 2 to 4 or 5 feet, and they are very unlike other kinds of beans in appearance. In this country, they are very little grown on account of our hot and dry summers. In Canada they are somewhat raised, and are sometimes used in the making of silage.

(6) The cowpea, which is really a bean (species of Vigna), much grown in the South for hay and green-manuring, is also a very good table vegetable and one that is destined to increase in popularity for domestic use.

The culture of the bean, while of the easiest, often proves a failure as far as the first crop is concerned, from planting the seed before the ground has become warm and dry. No vegetable seed will decay quicker than beans, and the delay caused by waiting for the soil to become warm and free from excessive moisture will be more than made up by the rapidity of growth when finally they are planted. Beans will grow on most any land, but the best results may be secured by having the soil well enriched and in good physical condition.

From the 5th to the 10th of May in the latitude of central New York, it will be safe to plant beans for an early crop. The beans may be dropped 2 inches deep in shallow drills, the seeds to lie 3 inches apart. Cover to the surface of the soil, and if the ground be dry, firm it with the foot or the back of the hoe. For the bush varieties, allow 2 feet between the drill-rows, but for the dwarf Limas 2-1/2 feet is better. Pole Limas are usually planted in hills 2 to 3 feet apart in the rows. Dwarf Limas may be sown thinly in drills.

A large number of the varieties of both the green-podded and the wax-podded beans are used almost exclusively as snap beans, to be eaten with the pod while tender. The various strains of the Black Wax are the most popular string beans. The pole or running beans are used either green or dried, and the Limas, both tall and dwarf, are well known for their superior flavor either as shelled or dry beans. The old-fashioned Cranberry or Horticultural Lima type (a pole form of Phaseolus vulgaris) is probably the best shell bean, but the trouble of poling makes it unpopular. Dwarf Limas are much more desirable for small gardens than the pole varieties, as they may be planted much closer, the bother of procuring poles or twine is avoided, and the garden will have a more sightly appearance. Both the dwarf Limas and pole Limas require a longer season in which to mature than the bush beans, and only one planting is usually made.

The ordinary bush beans may be planted at intervals of two weeks from the first planting until the 10th of August. Each planting may be made on ground previously occupied by some early-maturing crop. Thus, the first to third plantings may be on ground from which has been harvested a crop of spinach, early radish, or lettuce; after that, on ground where early peas have been grown; and the later sowings where beets or early potatoes have grown. String beans for canning are usually taken from the last crop.

One quart of seed will plant 100 feet of drill of the bush beans; or 1 quart of Limas will plant 100 hills.

Limas are the richest of beans, but they often fail to mature in the northern states. The land should not be very strong in nitrogen (or stable manure), else the plants will run too much to vine and be too late. Choose a fertile sandy or gravelly soil with warm exposure, use some soluble commercial fertilizer to start them off, and give them the best of culture. Aim to have the pods set before the droughts of midsummer come. Good trellises for beans are made by wool twine stretched between two horizontal wires, one of which is drawn a foot above the ground and the other 6 or 7 feet high.

Bean plants are not troubled by insects to any extent, but they are sometimes attacked by blight. When this occurs, do not plant the same ground to beans again for a year or two.

Beet.—This vegetable is grown for its thick root, and for its herbage (used as “greens”); and ornamental-leaved varieties are sometimes planted in flower-gardens.