Beans - Growing, Harvesting and Storing
by John Yazo
Beans are a crop that are very productive in the organic garden, along with their rich diversity and nutritional value. Beans being a primal food source, growing and saving heirloom bean varieties adds a rewarding feeling of accomplishment.
Beans are a hardy crop that grow well in most conditions, making them an excellent crop of choice for the home gardener. Even for areas that have a short growing season, there are short season varieties that are highly productive. By including succession planting practices in your garden plan, planting beans every 2 - 3 weeks between existing plants or in additional rows will greatly increase your harvest.
There are two types of beans, pole or bush beans. Pole bean varieties grow vertically and take less space in your garden, and can be planted along with crops of sunflowers or corn for a support for them to climb on, along with having an added benefit of fixing nutrients such as nitrogen to the soil for corn to benefit from. Bush beans will need more room, but are an excellent crop to companion plant along with beets, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, potatoes and radishes.
Beans do well started indoors for transplanting, or by seed sown directly in the garden. The one thing is that beans like a warm soil, so don't rush planting them outdoors until the temperatures in your area permit the proper environment needed for them to thrive.
Once harvested, open pollinated heirloom varieties of beans are easy to preserve and save the seeds for future years of planting. Instead of harvesting all the pods on the vine, let some of the pods dry naturally on the plant and shell them to collect the seeds once dried for storage for next years planting. Carefully label, including the name and date of harvest and store them in a cool, dry place. Heirloom varieties have been saved and passed down through several generations because or their unique flavor, production and hardiness traits.
Once you start growing your own heirloom crops, whether they be flowers, fruits, herbs or vegetables, and discover for yourself the unique quality that they produce, you will want to preserve these precious plants to pass down to generations to come in your family, or to pass on to your friends. Just as many others have been doing for years. The preserving of native and heirloom plants are also very beneficial to the ecosystem.
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