Enhancing Nitrogen fixation while growing beans for harvest

[Meadowlark]

We really like to grow our own beans for shelling. They taste so much better and cook so much easier than store bought dried beans. We grow pintos, Canelli, and Navy in bushes and Bingo and Seychelles in pole type shellers.

I like to plant shelling beans as a rotation crop and soil builder also but the amount of N2 fixation by them is relatively low especially if the beans are harvested.

Soybeans, on the other hand do a pretty fair job of nitrogen fixation especially when the pods are not harvested.

Thus, the companion planting of our shelling beans which will be harvested with soybeans which will not be harvested but returned to the soil for replenishment.

Another week or so and the shelling beans will be ready to harvest. Then I'll let the soybeans just take over the entire space. No weeding necessary, just let 'em rip.

 

[headfullofbees]

That is impressive.

 

[Meadowlark]

Picked the pintos today and

shelled about half of them this evening after letting them dry in the sun all afternoon

 

[headfullofbees]

I like to buy pinto beans for re-fried beans, as the my climate does not really suit growing beans for the seeds.
(You can get enough to save seed eventually, but they're not really eating quality)
Can't.
Not to be found.
Must be a World shortage.

 

[Meadowlark]

My climate here in East Texas seems to be ideal for growing pintos. Now lima beans interestingly are another matter entirely...not worth growing here, for some reason. The cranberry bean or also called the borlotti bean does well here. The borlotti bean looks like the pinto bean, but is bigger, and white with dark red specks.

Cannellini and Navy beans do okay here and provide a tasty alternative to the above.

In pole beans, Bingo is another shelling bean that does really well here. Seychelles bean can go both ways, green or shelling. This year I'm trying out the 1500-year-old cave bean otherwise known as the New Mexico Cave bean. Very interesting history behind this bean and so far, the bean is producing well here.

Those that garden for taste, and I count myself among them, prize these beans over the dried often tasteless beans available in stores.

 

[Meadowlark]

Picked the shelling beans today including bingos (A classic in Italian cuisine, Bingo is a highly sought after Borlotto-type pole bean. Big, creamy green pods are streaked in bright pinkish red, growing 5 inches long and ½ inch wide.), Cannellini (Other names for the bean include white kidney bean and fazolia bean. They are similar to white navy beans or haricots, as they are known in Britain.) 1500 year old cave beans (Stories say that seeds were found sealed in a clay pot in a cave in New Mexico, and that carbon dating showed them to be 1500 years old. The beans are white and red mottled, and the size and shape of a large kidney) and Navy beans (The navy bean, haricot, pearl haricot bean, Boston bean, white pea bean, or pea bean is a variety of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) native to the Americas, where it was first domesticated.)

Here they are drying awaiting the sheller:

With a sheller it takes little time to shell all these out...and it is kinda fun actually

Here's the cannellini and Navy and 1500 year old mixed in

Here's the big bingos shelled out:

Enough beans to last us for a couple of years plus enough extra to give away to friends.

 

[Meadowlark]

Next step in replenishing this soil is to shred the harvested rows and plant them with a high nitrogen fixing cover crop...Sunn Hemp. I will let these grow until August when I disc it under and then plant alfalfa for fall/winter cover crop. This soil will then be completely replenished and then some for planting next spring completing the cycle.

A little over a week ago, I planted my previously harvested onion/potato rows in Sunn Hemp. You can see it has really taken off with rapid growth. This will also be allowed to grow until about August when it will also be turned under and planted in my fall/winter cover crop of alfalfa.

This entire garden space was where last winter's veggies were growing and by next spring it will have been completely replenished with two heavy nitrogen fixing cover crops and soybeans. In spring, it will be ready to produce next spring's garden crops fully stocked with organics and plenty of nitrogen naturally provided. That is how my garden grows.

 

[skinyea]

Man you are awesome. living my dream life. well done!!!!

 

[gary350]

Navy beans are my favorite but never grew them. I have, Roma flat pad beans, Cranberry beans this year.