Grow Perfect Beans Every Time
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- If you could only grow one crop, what would it be? Beans of course! The most prolific, keep-on-coming versatile veggie a gardener can grow. What's not to love?
They're also incredibly economical on space as well as on your grocery bill because you can grow them vertically in a stunning variety of ways, which Ben demonstrates in this week's episode.
For more tips on growing blissful beans, perfect peas and luscious legumes, check out this playlist
• How to Grow Peas & Beans
If you love growing your own food, why not take a look at our online Garden Planner which is available from several major websites and seed suppliers:
www.GrowVeg.com
gardenplanner.almanac.com
gardenplanner.motherearthnews...
and many more...
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I am growing beans from seeds my mother froze from Dad's crop of 1991. She passed away @103years of age and we found these seeds in her freezer labeled 'Old Timey Green Beans you can't buy in the store anymore. I991"
They are currently flourishing in my garden!
Hope you have a wonderful harvest
Best wishes from Ireland 🇮🇪
That is absolutely wonderful Larry. What a legacy!
Fantastic
Wow I'm surprised they are still viable
Oh wow! Be sure to seed save from your current crop!
I had a praying mantis in my pole beans that ate the aphid infestation I had. I almost picked him because I thought he was a bean! That little guy also took out the gypsy moths on my broccoli too! I grow organically anyway but what I learned from this is how nature takes care of everything and it's part of the overall ecosystem. He was a happy camper and so was I!😊
I do hope your channel gains the views and you gain strength. :-)
Hi @Sherri Ianiro, that praying mantis sounds like an awesome gardening allie!
@@GrowVeg Thanks! I hope he shows up again this year!
That is one of the cutest things ever!!
I was going to get some preying mantises for my garden, but upon researching, I found, they eat hummingbirds... I don't want that to happen... is it a regular thing, or a very rare thing? Anyone who knows, would love to hear from you!
I REALLY love this man for his genuine enthusiasm and explaining every process in great detail. As a newby to veg & herbs it can be overwhelming so thank you for simplifying it and keeping a smile on your face as you do it, very inspirational 🤗
Thanks Wendy! :-)
I planted only 8 bean plants last year and got 3 gallon sized bags chock full from them...my friends were thankful that we had so many and we gave them away to them..this yield was gained by picking often.
Good first-hand evidence of the need to pick!
Initially I wanted to just plant few cherry tomatoes as a side project and came here for advice about germination. Here I am a month after I started watching your channel with potatoes and lettuces already in my garden and some beans, broccolis and a zuchini waiting for the right time to transplant. And I've set up a bokashi compost and vermi compost as well to support that garden later on. Thank you for all the work you do on this channel, you've helped me find a new hobby and a surprisingly strong stress relief. My little garden with 3 raised beds is now my happy place :D.
You’re exactly where I want to be. I’ve just tasted my first fresh pea shoot 😮I'm old and no one has ever talked about doing this… 🤔 I think his videos are inspiring us all to try new veg/herbs. Good luck Marek 🤗
@Jane Smith when they are home grown you stop caring about the size and how the veggies look, you know they are healthy and will taste delicious
@@TheWendable Old is just a state of mind. I know some teens who are old. If you are following your passions and dreams then you are young!
Thanks so much for your kind words guys. Growing your own is so empowering and satisfying!
I am so pleased with my garden, so far. I have picked pole bean 2 times, green beans 2 times, and today, I picked maybe 2 pounds of wax beans. Next weekend, it's tater digging day. I'm not used to having a producing garden..I'm blessed! SO blessed. Thanks, Ben!
What a great result! :-)
@@GrowVeg Well, Ben. As you were typing your reply, I was watching my garden getting pelted and ripped apart by a hail storm, like I have not seen in Florida. It has happened before, I had never experienced it, until now. We are converting to a L'Nino from a La Nina..For those of us in the south US, that means we are going from dry and hot, to wet and hopefully cooler. But, in all of our preps, composting, and fertilizing, we often overlook the weather patterns. It's late in the season for me to start over with tomatoes. I can replant the beans etc. But, I think with all that we have available to us now, we might need to consider, if there is one more step that we can take, to protect our garden. Just some thoughts for me, today.
If you've never allowed runner beans to fully mature and then harvest them as dry soup beans, I recommend it! They don't stay pretty during the cooking process, sadly, they turn a brownish-grey color, but the taste is amazing and, of course, dried beans will store well for a long time. Last night we made soup from the last of our stored butternut squashes and a cup of dried beans: it was a delicious gift from our 2022 garden.
Good advice! I do this every year with runner beans and make an absolutely delicious stew with them.
Do you still water the vines while the beans are drying or stop watering at some point?
@@magencramer7359 I keep mine watered until the pods are getting leathery. They're also maturing and filling out as they're drying. Where I am they go all season so I maintain them until the leaves start to yellow in the fall.
I water until the pods start to turn brown...and then ideally would let them dry. Sometimes the weather has other plans! I live in the maritime Pacific Northwest and we can get heavy rains at any time of year. Rather than let everything get moldy, I sometimes pull out the vines and hang them in the barn...or pull the pods and shell them before they've gotten totally dry and then put the shelled beans on drying racks. It's more work, but sometimes necessary here.
Yes my wife n I clean & bag/ freeze our beans which we consume all winter. They are a good compliment to my harvested grouse & whitetail deer 🍁73+ Manitoba hunter Yorkshire expat
I have got to say this is probably one of the most helpful videos I’ve seen recently gardening wise. I never actually really knew how to grow beans until this video, I’m definitely going to take into account so many of his tips and tricks to hopefully yield Ana amazing crop this year. Thank you for the tips
Great stuff! Glad you found the video useful.
Thank you for another great video. I learned the following technique from a man from Mexico that I think is worth sharing: He hung jute twine on a nail down the fence to the bean plant and the beans grew right up them. At the end of the season, I just cut the twine to remove the entire plant when it was finished. So easy, and very inexpensive!!
What a great method. :-)
Thanks for another great video! Slugs are my nemesis
I got the kids at our library to plant pole beans in mid-March to get them excited about our Seed Library and gardening in general, and let them choose whether they wanted to take them home or leave them at the library. Just over a month later, and the ones sitting in our library's windows have done surprisingly well and have started to flower! They really are remarkably resilient things, and so fantastically nutritious. Great video as always :)
A seed library?!? I love that idea!
I'm doing the same thing at our library--today we planted flowers for pollinators. We will plant beans next month, it's still too cold here. But I was able to distributed bean seeds from our Seed Library as well as sunflower seeds. The kids (and parents) were thrilled!
@@RealBradMiller It's definitely become more popular here in Canada, and the US too. The best ones provide heirloom seeds only, and give instruction on how to save the seed. They "return" some of the seed they collect for the following year's library! We've only got a small one going at our library right now, but it piques the curiosity of our patrons and shares the joy of growing your own veg!
What a lovely thing to get the kids to do - I bet they loved it. :-)
I acquired a 8×10 galvanized chain link dog pen that I use to grow out pole beans and there is plenty of room in there for some squash as well. That leaves us with extra room for other things in the garden.🤗
What a great way to grow them!
Great idea! I have a dog pen I could do this with as well. I wonder if rabbits can get through the chain link fence and eat the beans?
@@Itsgettingcrazy. I did not have a issue at all last season .🤗
I'm sorry this isn't relevant to the video but your garden planning app is clutch, thank you so much for hosting it, super helpful!
I love it too!
Thanks so much! :-)
My standby beans are Seychelles stringless fillet pole bean, Maxibel bush stringless filet and the new improved Blue Lake 274 bush bean. Great tips! I envy you with your bees - I've attempted for two summers to raise bees. I set up four hives facing the southeast at the edge of the forest that abuts my property. I then bought four jumbo pkgs of Italian honey bees. They built thier hives in the nest boxes and were prolific and happy. Unfortunately my rural neighbors do not understand the role honey bees and other pollinating insects play in our crops and gardens. The elderly fellow across the road sprays copious amounts of Sevin on everything and anything that flowers on his 2 acre property. The father in law of my abutting neighbor got the bright idea to spray for ticks and mosquitos "to protect the grandchildren". Problem is he sprayed middle of the day when the clover was in full bloom. I lost three complete hives - collapse from the toxic pesticides and the fourth terribly weakened which did not survive the winter. I went around and spoke to these folks letting them know how their insecticides are killing bees and shared my 3 hive collapses. I then ordered 4 more pkgs of Italian honey bees early spring the next year - same thing. I've abandoned attempting to raise bees. In the meantime, pollination here is sketchy to say the least with the stupidity and calloused attitudes of some of these folks. Just one of the many problems when urban folks relocate to rural areas.
I'm so sorry - what a shame. It's crazy how some people just seem to 'nuke' everything to keep things clean and tidy (and sterile!). I do hope you manage to raise bees one day.
I love wax beans...they are so good when you grow them yourself.
Rattlesnake pole beans, Oriental Yard Long Beans and red noodle beans. South central Texas
Thanks David. Those seeds produced better than the Kentucky Wonders I purchased. I have planted them again this year and they have come up and flourishing again. They create happy memories if my mom!
I prefer bush beans since they all come in at the same time which facilitates canning and preservation. Great video, thanks.
Me, too. I plant a few every 3 weeks or so. Bush beans are tidy. Pole beans turn into a huge monster in our ohio summers
Sewn my runners in the greenhouse 3 days ago, living between Manchester and Liverpool, I've left it late to be safe. Grew them for the first time last year, growing twice as many this year. Keep up the good work you are doing... Oh love the arches by the way, have to keep my eyes open for something like that.
Thanks Norman. I think it always pays to play it safe - no harm in that.
Best bean growing guide!
grew braunhilde beans and they ended up nearly 10 feet tall and grabbed onto a branch of a tree that was behind it proceeded to run up the tree and still overproduced ... recommended for those who like purple ... it was stunning
Lovely variety, very pretty. :-)
My plans for today are sowing seeds for Rattlesnake pole beans, and Oriental Yard Long Beans. I have them growing up an arched trellis made of cattle pannel. I am also sowing seeds for Thumbelina Zinnias, Shasta Dasies, and Marigolds. Two days ago, I harvested ten pound of Swiss Chard, yesterday, 7 pounds of mustard, and a lot of radishes. The core leaves were left on the Swiss Chard. They will put out new leaves for another harvest. The mustard was cut two inches above the root base. They will put out new leaves soon.
That's a lot of chard and mustard - fantastic!
More videos please.
oh yes im really hoping to be full of beans this year lol
I love beans, bush and d long kind..I grow em every year, I start later than May cuz they grow quick and long ...
Hi Ben and thank´s for sharing your experiences.
Last year, -22, I had a lot of beautiful flowering Runner beans; the experiment was to ferment them for as long as to Mar-Apr -23, i e to The Hungry Gap -23. The experiment was successful; I´ve already had some trials with beans (1-2/5 max.) together with brown rice (3-4/5 min). Beware, the fermented beans gets a really strong taste. Start with sieving them thoroughly. If you need to add water later on in the process, use fresh water. (The tap water has of course to be filtered to remove lime, chlorine and heavy metals...) The fermented beans do not have your favorite taste, but it´s ok when diluted with a proportionally significantly larger amount of brown rice. Tastes good with natural soy sauce, appr. three tablespoons per portion.
Great recommendation, thanks for sharing your results. :-)
I’ve turned an old polytunnel frame into a climbing bean arch, I can’t wait to get it planted up
I love beans !
Growing for dried beans and green this year
You'll have loads of beans! Superb!
I have a terrible time with slugs devouring everything in the garden. This year I've been heavily pregnant and unable to keep on top of mowing our huge garden lawn which the slugs thrive under and eventually make their way into the raised beds. This year I watered in a nematode solution 1 week before planting out and have noticed a massive decrease in the amount of slugs in the raised beds, I was almost ready to give up on growing my own because it was so discouraging, but the nematodes have been a game changer! Highly recommended them, and they are natural and environmentally friendly
That's a really useful tip, thanks Natasha. So pleased you've got on top of those slugs!
I planted some climbing beans behind a bench I made near my fish pond... the idea being they should grow up the improvised branch trellis behind the bench and make a nice little green shade screen.
Lovely idea Christopher.
I am a new gardener and am growing mange tout and French beans this year, if I get them to germinate ok. I have some plug plants as a backup incase I can’t manage it all myself. It’s a big learning curve for me but whatever the results I enjoy the process and am already learning a lot from my mistakes 😊
That's the main thing - enjoy it all Lucy. :-)
Your garden is beautiful! Thanks for all the tips. You make all of us feel confident to build our own gardens!
That's really great to hear. Happy gardening!
I grow green beans ❤
I have Blue Lake 274 and Asparagus Beans going. I cant wait!
Great stuff!
I am growing Yellow Wax and Jacob's Cattle Beans these two are new for me. As well I am also growing Chinese Long, Pole and Bush Beans these are my usual yearly plants.
Great mix of beans there! :-)
I grew Chinese Noodle Bean last year as an experiment and this year, I've decided to grow them on arches going over my walk way. They're delicious and beautiful!
Hi from Qld, Australia 😀🌴🍂🍁🍁Your channel is so good; thank you. It is full of such useful information to help gardeners, and great tips!
Thanks for tuning in! :-)
This is a brilliant channel. Very encouraging. Can't help but notice that you put in kitchen compost where the beans are going to go in a trench, then you sewed beans in a pyramid? But still You motivate me and it's a pleasure to watch and learn from you.
Thanks so much. The bean trench concept can be applied to pyramids of beans also - just add your kitchen waste where the beans will be planted. :-)
I love bush beans but I'm going to try pole beans again. Thanks for the good info.
Very timely video! I planted some broad beans outside last week and some runner beans in seedling pots on my windowsill, looking forward to seeing how they do!
Thank you! 🥰 That beeer trap..... my slugs must be attending AA meetings because no beer traps works in my garden 😎
They usually love beer!
Howdy Ben! 👋 Thanks for the knowledge...I'm always learning something new from you.😃 I like to compost in place in my containers. It's good to know beans appreciate it and that I can't over water them. 😃
This year, I'm growing Scarlett Runner beans, Asparagus beans, and Purple Pink Eyed Cowpeas.
Your garden design is so nice!👍
Lovely mix Valorie! Lots to be picking this summer. :-)
Might plant these next spring. Who doesn't love beans. :)
Cheers Ben another great video !
Had I found you earlier, I would have a queens garden by now. Hope it's not too late for me.
Thank you! ❤
Haha, thanks Maria!
1st year doing allotment and beans. I got around 20plants started and huge T structure built and another T structure built for cucumbers.. hope they grow up the canes well
Sounds like you're off to a great start. :-)
I was beyond impressed with my pole beans! I had only three plants and I’ve gotten almost 2 gallons of beans, and they’re still going!
They keep on coming if you keep on picking - abundance by the handfuls!
I grow purple podded pole beans near the side walk. They are terrific producers and when people walk by they like and comment on them.
Beautiful!
I am growing red swan beans, purple beans and wax beans.
You Sir, are AWESOME 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Thank you!
This year I'm growing a pole bean called Turkey Craw and will be using them for an Appalachian culinary tradition, Leather Britches beans. A delicious dish that my grandma used to make.
Sounds intriguing!
I'd love to hear how you make that dish, I love learning new dishes with beans.
@@marymcandrew7667 here's a good video of how to make them, they do take time to make but they are so delicious and worth the effort.
th-cam.com/video/HU77bD0c-OY/w-d-xo.html
@@marymcandrew7667same ❤
Borlotti and scarlet runner beans and at least two others are going in this year. If our weather actually stops trying to revert to winter, then all will be will.🇨🇦❤️
Noodle beans would look so pretty on your arched trellis. That's what I'm growing this year!
On a whim, I grabbed some black beans out of a store bought bag and they grew into beautiful plants. Your video couldn't have come out at a better time as I had no idea how to grow and care for them, so thank you so much!
So pleased this video has proved useful Melanie. :-)
Im a big fan of the channel. Im trying to grow mungo and bush beans as a first time bean grower. Lol just 5 plants of each. So I dont risk growing too much ( i have a weak spot when it comes to growing stuff in the garden😂).
Well done on being so restrained - that takes strength! :-)
This year I'm doing scarlet runner beans and heirloom rattlesnake pole beans (which already seem to be rapid growers in the greenhouse)
A great pairing of beans. :-)
I'm growing runner beans, 3 types of dwarf French bean and 3 types of climbing French bean this year. A bit over the top but are using up old seed stock so growing in the conservatory in pots, in the greenhouse bed, in my two pumpkin patches and in pots outside. I garden in Scotland and 'hedge a bet' with fine spring weather and put a few bean seeds in the soil in early may, cover them with old deep clear chicken breast trays covered in wire to stop the mice and squirrels getting them and then fleece, as soon as they pop up I remove the chicken breast tray and cover with a clear stacking box to stop the slugs. If it's dry I water them, if frosts are light they survive and I get a few plants as an earlier crop. A bit of a faff covering them but it works. I grow them with sweet peas and with calendula at the base and surrounded by borage, brings in the bees. Sometimes I put lettuces inside the bean trellis so the lettuce does not bolt.
What a great way to cheat the seasons (and the slugs!).
I fell in love with growing french beans last year after a number of failed attempts with runner beans. I particularly loved a purple variety called cosse violet. It went green when cooked and just grew and grew until the weather change. This year I'm growing Vosse, Faraday, Cobra and a few other dwarf varieties. Also having another go at runner beans.
Lovely mix of beans there. :-)
I planted green climbing beans and purple (violet queen) beans. The latter was a huge cropper. The former was good and climbed high and produced well. The purple variety were easy to find. Coming into our winter in Oz now they've all died back.
Ps I am growing Scarlet Emperor, they were recommended to me. Just germinated, looking good, now I have the exact info for planting them out. Thanks!
I realy think your videos are great. The way you give information is very pleasant
Thanks so much. :-)
Thankyou for this video. I'm usually successful with runners, but always interesting to see what you do. I'm growing Lady Di and Firestorm runners this year with a purple French climbing bean, Braunhilde. Waiting for this cold snap to finish here in Cumbria before I plant out.
I’m growing Painted Lady beans and Kentucky Blue Lake pole beans. I live in the Central Valley in California and it already getting very hot here. Today it is going to be 98 degrees! My biggest problem is the heat. Especially when it starts up so early in the season.
Oh wow, that is very hot already!
Moles are a real problem. Any ideas?
Loved this video. Thanks. Cape Town. S. A.
You can get mole deterrents. More on this here: www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/moles
I'm growing Borlotti, Green Slenderete, and Chinese Wigna. I hope for a productive year))))))
This is so helpful! Thank you!
Hot damn this channel is useful!
Lovely explanation.
David Briggs
I am growing runner beans, french climbing bean and Greek Gigantes
I just started pole beans bush beans and yellow beans today.
Brilliant! :-)
Great video, so helpful, thank you
Thanks for the masterclass.
Very good video Ben . I am trying black and red beans in windowboxes. And 7 kinds of pole beans, some are spekled and some are purple, one is trail of tears, some are old german or swiss beans. All can be eaten green or dry. I think thats better if they can be used both ways. I will sow in big pots as always next week. So happy bean growing y'all 🙂🌻
Hi Ben, great video on how to grow beans with lots of useful information. Thanks for sharing and take care 😊
I planted bush beans so they fit under my hoops which hold insect net. Despite anchoring it well and it's a very fine net (much finer than tulle) I found a caterpillar on one plant today & got rid of him quickly!
Last summer I was a bit disappointed with the number of runner beans that were produced, so very grateful for the tip about adding tomato fertilizer and the tip about picking early to promote growth. Hope to do better this summer, thanks.
Fingers crossed for you Eddie.
We are trying Dragon Tongue bush beans this year and Seychelles pole beans. Will be another three weeks before our temperature is warm enough to get them started! Great hint about growing beans that will stand out in color from the leaves! Lots of luck to you for a wonderful garden this year Ben!
Thanks Madeleine - and for your garden too.
Dragon Tongue bush beans are my absolute fave! Easy to find and delicious. I also like purple pole beans for the same reasons.
Great advice. Thank you, as a novice allotment holder, any advice welcome.
Rachel 👍👍💐
Thanks Rachel. Happy gardening!
Thanks for this video got various runner beans on the go for this season Tim
Thank you!
I love your videos. They are so informative and entertaining.
Thanks Marilyn. :-)
With my beans, I have found that my biggest pest is rabbits. I have had to cage all my beds to keep the little buggers out. They will mow down a row of beans in a heartbeat. Im growing bush green beans, as well as Kentucky wonder pole beans and Chinese noodle beans.
Well done on coming up with a solution to keep them out. :-)
Great videos I have just found you and watched a few now and I like it that you use inches as well as that metric thing. keep posting the videos thank you 👍👍👍
Will do Peter. Thanks for watching!
Perfect plant ☘️ fresh and healthy
Hi Ben -although i am in the S France it has been cold and only just started to warm up - so i started everything in the tunnel to ensure everything came up. I planted some about a month ago, it was to early and they caught frost, so lucky i sowed plenty. I also had green manure and chopped and dropped it after planting and slugs moved in - so next time i need to chop and drop and let it rot down before planting.
Hope you manage to get a good crop of beans eventually. Still chilly here but looks like things may warm up next week. :-)
I adore you guys!!!
Thank you so much, Sarah! :-)
I am growing Dragon's Tongue beans that look similar to your borlatti beans but are a yellow wax climbing. Other beans in my garden this year are black runner beans, red indian beans and a bean called the 1500 year old cave bean which was found in a pot in New Mexico, USA and still grew! I got them from Baker's Creek Seeds which is near my hometown. Thank you for your tips as well.
Some lovely varieties there - and I'm intrigues by the 1500 Year Old Cave Bean! :-)
I just found you when I was looking up composting. You are a great teacher.
I planted Royal Burgandy bush bean's and so far so good. I have 2 in a grow bag. I'll be watching more of your video's because I am going to transplant tomato and squash.
So pleased you found our channel too. Happy gardening!
I'm growing broad beans this year
I never connected the mature pods with the end of their production cycle. That's amazing information. Thank you. X
I just bought your wonderful book and read it in one sitting😀😀😀 cant wait to try growing beans this year
Thanks so much for your support. Definitely get those beans growing! :-)
Thanks again for another informative video. I love fresh beans,I also can loads of beans for the next year.
The David Attenborough of the Garden Variety 👍
Wow, that is a huge honour!
Great video! I've got runner beans and french beans going, I already planted them out with 4ft 😬, going to grab some larger canes after watching this vod
I grow crops on canes sequentially fromSpring through to Autumn…start with mange tout peas which are more tolerant of cooler weather…then climbing “French” Asturias beans (triply useful…as green beans, podded beans and beans for drying), then Runner beans…and also Greek Gigantes beans (butter beans) for drying. I start all the seeds off in root trainers to avoid slug damage. If you,re careful root trainers last many years. Most utube gardeners like yourself plant just a couple of plants by each cane…I plant 5 or 6 at each cane…bigger crops and an insurance policy against snails😀. Jinxy
Interesting to be planting so many by each cane Jane - clearly this works for you. :-)
Great video ben i did my beans last week im doing belittle again this year
This year I've planted purple pole beans, my grandma called them magic beans because of the way they change color when they're cooked!
What a lovely name for them!
Got tomatoes (roma, cherry and slicing), purple and green broccoli,
Fennel, dill, cayenne, shishito, jalapeno and ghost peppers, bell peppers, radishes, carrots, rocket, lettuce, parsley, basil, organo, garlic, spring onions, lavender, ruby red, honey gold, and russet potatoes, sweet corn. Nastutium, zinnia, alysuum, feverfew, marigold, mint, rosemary. Snap and purple peas, blue lake beans... to name a few!
Oh and my peach tree has fruit growing as well! Umm, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberris. Just waiting to see what the plum and apple tree do.
Such a superb abundance of good things!
Hi Ben~ this is a great video! I'm growing pole beans, "Cherokee Wax" - a black seeded yellow bean to be exact, and bush beans, "Jade and Green Blaze, The Hulk" because I want all the harvest to come in and can it up, and the pole, runner, climber beans so I will enjoy beans all summer long. I made a fatal-to-beans mistake years ago, I let my chickens into the garden early on, and they scratched up ALL the baby bean plants...I resowed them and had a brilliant harvest all summer long. Among others, I grow Princess Di, Kentucky Wonder, Cherokee Trail of Tears also. This bean has a famous and very sad history: it was sown all along the "Death March" imposed on the Cherokee Indians as they were forcefully moved to a reservation off of the land in the southeastern US. The planted the beans along the way so they could find their way home. It breaks my heart to think of it. Thank you for helping us along! We have another 5" of snow this morning and 20 F degrees. I'll be planting beans in June!
I never realised that was the reason they were called Trail of Tears. Really sad indeed.
A cautionary tale of beer: Due to the high rainfall of West Virginia, coupled with dense clay soil, slugs are a problem most of the year. Once upon a time I tried using beer in tin pans around the cabbages and beans. What I failed to understand at the time was that it would attract others who otherwise wouldn't make nuisance of themselves. Specifically, the stray feline population was, unbeknownst to me, a huge fan of Oktoberfest. I got an evil eye from the neighbors for a month after tom cats from 10 blocks away had their drunken brawls in a 500 yard radius surrounding my home keeping the neighbors up in the witching hours of night. Once the deer got wind of it, they ran off the cats and trampled the garden seeking out that lovely brew for themselves. They even snubbed the corn I planted for them to keep them out of the garden. Thankfully their body weight prevented them from a drunken state, but their demands for more beer pawing at the ground every night for a few weeks decided that only Brussel sprouts along the fence & container plants on the porch would survive that year. As they say in our hollers, "Welp, how'd that work out fer ya?". Not too good! Should folks find themselves in similar habitat, I found success with early application of Epsom salts sprinkled around the perimeter of the garden, pruning low branches at earliest opportunity, mulch around base of stalks, and daily inspection of the garden to manually pick them off. The detriment of salt washed away with frequent rains, and the potassium just got tilled into the compost at the end of the season. I imagine somewhere out there, folks who are trying to keep deer off their roses and tulip bulbs have finally found a "trap crop" to distract them.
Great advice there Robert. Who would have thought the cats would have a drinking habit!
Cracking up at this in southeast Ohio
Southern Missouri here where my woods are populated with barn cats (some of them, mine) and deer. I can't decide if this comment is satire or if I should avoid beer traps should the slugs arrive (so far, just tiny garden snails in low number).. 🤔
😊😊😅
We are growing the same beans I believe! It made me so excited when you held up the mottled colored ones. The description on mine refer to them as "Cranberry Beans", but a quick google just showed me they are indeed the same. First time growing any style of runner/pole bean so wish me luck! The other variety I ordered is the scarlet emperor. I hope to try them both young and mature.
Very best of luck Sarah - I'm sure you'll ace it! :-)