Pull Bean Plants to Pick Beans?

I have never heard of picking green beans this way, and wondering if anyone else does it. From the True Leaf Market page for on-line ordering of Blue Lake Bush Beans:

"Because green beans are annual, you can simply pull the root from the ground when it’s time to pick them."   (https://www.trueleafmarket.com/products/bean-bush-blue-lake-bush-274?variant=38922254792)


I have never heard of anyone pulling the bean plants. I personally pick the green beans many times, until the plant is totally exhausted and stops producing. The more they are picked, the more they produce. If the plants are pulled to harvest them, that means there is only one harvest per planting of beans. This same sentence appears on their on-line order page for the Blue Lake Pole Beans, which is odd since pole beans produce until frost kills them.

No, I have never done this...I do like you; harvest many times.  Even bush beans keep producing!

No, but I have thought about doing this for some bush beans that have been planted so close together that I couldn't harvest them easily.  I always overplant my beans so it would not affect me much to just pull the plant.  It is hot and sweat is dripping down my forehead at this time of year as I lean into a four foot wide bed trying to find the hidden beans and looking to make sure a snake is not hiding down there somewhere.  BUT, I actually have never done it but I wanted to many times.

If you uproot the plant you can't get beans for the rest of their season . What I do is make a lot of regular picking of the beans & pea , new flowers break out so long as you don't pinch or cut out the growing tips

sanderson wrote:Never heard of pulling up beans, not until the plants are exhausted.

Me neither, that is why I was surprised to see this company recommending that as the proper way to harvest the beans.  Last evening I did the 6th picking of the bush beans.

After the plants stop producing, i cut them down to the ground and solarize the soil for a few weeks then shake the nodules free from the roots and till them back into the mix.The nodules contain beneficial bacteria that help the beans release nitrogen back into the soil. The inoculant will help the next crop get started. This year was a total flop for my Blue Lake bush beans. I thought that I could get away with watering less if I planted them close together. They were all competing for sunlight and produced a lot less pods, and they were like vegetable jerky because I hadn't been able to keep them wet enough to withstand an unusually hot spell. I think I'm going to go back to pole beans and try for better luck with a fall planting.

At the end of the season, after the bean plants are exhausted, I just cut the plants off at soil level and leave them to decompose - the microbes love the roots.

Sorry to hear that your Blue Lake Beans haven't done well. I plant mine 9 per square, and this year they have grown bigger and produced more beans than ever before. We've picked them six times so far, and they are still blooming. The beans are delicious right out of the garden, and I love snacking on them while working the gardens.

I have second bed of the Blue Lake Beans planted - 12 squares of 9 per square - and they are just now starting to bloom. So, we'll soon have a new batch of beans to start picking.  I have another bunch of Blue Lake Pole Beans, but they don't produce enough beans at a time to have enough to freeze or can. The bush beans produce a batch like this every 4 or 5 days.

Ugh, I hate it when my hypothesis is wrong and then affects my yield!  

My Dragon Tongue have produced nicely, but I now have enough to make a “mess” of beans and taters!  

Cukes going well.  Need to see when I posted last so I don’t repeat myself!  Finally a break from the horrible heat!

Our first bed of Blue Lake Bush Beans is about done, we are still picking from them but they have quit blooming.  But, the second bed which was planted about a month after the first one are now about ready for the first picking. That bed should produce beans up until the frost kills them, and the bed gets planted with garlic.  The pole beans are doing great and will produce beans up until frost.

Yardslave wrote:After the plants stop producing, i cut them down to the ground and solarize the soil for a few weeks then shake the nodules free from the roots and till them back into the mix.The nodules contain beneficial bacteria that help the beans release nitrogen back into the soil. The inoculant will help the next crop get started. This year was a total flop for my Blue Lake bush beans. I thought that I could get away with watering less if I planted them close together. They were all competing for sunlight and produced a lot less pods, and they were like vegetable jerky because I hadn't been able to keep them wet enough to withstand an unusually hot spell. I think I'm going to go back to pole beans and try for better luck with a fall planting.

How do you solarize the soil?  I'm about ready to say done with bush beans, I've gotten 3 pickings out of the very crowded 18 plants in one square. I'm the only one in the family that eats them.

Emily49 wrote:

Yardslave wrote: I'm about ready to say done with bush beans, I've gotten 3 pickings out of the very crowded 18 plants in one square. I'm the only one in the family that eats them.

That is too dense for the plants to be able to develop and produce beans. They should be planted 9 per square. I have one bed with 18 squares of them at 9 per square, and another bed with 12 squares of them at 9 per square. All of them are producing heavily.  But, if you are the only one that eats them, you may only want one or two squares with 9 per square.

Agree with OG; spacing for bush beans is 9/SF

I have never solarized the MM.  Why do you think that’s necessary, Emily49?

Thanks for the article, sanderson.

This is a really helpful article - I found some of the research on which it is based a few years ago. Still trying to get a certain person to read it; he just took the car to get it serviced and the AC fixed (now that our early heat wave of 90 F + is over and it is in the 50s this morning  . . .) so he will be sitting there for a while, so I sent it to him . . .

Why solarize? Anything exposed to the air can get fungal spores deposited on it.  Any plants can get fungi and bacteria on them, as well as insects.  Some are good, some are not. The goal is to knock back the disease causing organisms and allow the beneficials to do their jobs without undue competition. When starting a new garden or after solarization of beds that have had problems, beneficial microorganisms can be added with a product such as Espoma's Biotone. Arbico Organics carries quite a few different soil inoculants such as EM-1, TerraGrow, Earth Alive. Check them out. 

It doesn't always matter that you have taken excellent care of your gardens & fields. Bad things can blow in, or come in with insects or birds. The best we can do is make our growing areas as healthy as possible.

I get that, RainyG.  I have a problem right now on my south side...as careful as you are, Mother Nature rules.  

I just never have done it, so was interested in the info!