There's nothing like nice tender green beans fresh from the garden.
A vegetable rich in vitamins and minerals, and also low in calories.
A true delight ! In addition, the green bean is easy to grow.
You can grow it in the ground, in your vegetable garden, but also in pots, on your balcony or terrace. It just needs a warm, sunny spot.
To help you eat delicious, tender and melt-in-the-mouth beans, here are 10 market gardening tips for growing beautiful green beans . Watch:
Click here to easily print this guide in PDF.
1. Plant your green beans in a spot with direct sun exposure (at least 10 hours a day).
2. Beans need warmth to grow well, ideally with an air temperature between 20 and 27°C, and a soil temperature of at least 15°C.
3. Sow your bean seeds in rows and 2-3cm deep, with 8-10cm between each seed.
4. After the seeds germinate, add a 2-3 cm layer of mulch. Mulching keeps the soil moist and cool during hot weather. Too much heat can cause the flowers to wilt and drop without fruiting.
5. To be sure to harvest green beans throughout the fall, stagger the sowing (sow your seeds every 15 days and until August).
6. The ideal pH for growing green beans is between 6.0 and 6.5, so add 2 to 3 cm of compost to the soil before sowing your seeds.
7. Aphids attack the leaves and young shoots of green beans. In the event of an attack, eliminate their colonies with a jet of water or wash the foliage with a mild soap solution.
8. Harvest your green beans when their skin is still tender. If you harvest them too late, the skin will harden and the beans will become stringy, which is unpleasant to eat…
9. When harvesting, avoid pulling on the beans. Use a knife to cut them at the peduncle, otherwise you risk damaging the plant.
10. Harvest pole beans every 2-3 days to allow the plant to continue producing.
- "Netted" or "extra-fine" green beans have long pods of incomparable flavor. But if they are harvested too late, they become stringy and unpleasant to eat...
- Mangetout green beans are a little less tasty, but they are without wires inside.
- Beans "filets sans fil", "filet mangetout" or "extra fine sans fil" are new varieties of snap beans that are also meant to be picked young. The advantage is that these beans remain tender and fine even with a slight delay in harvesting.
There are many varieties of beans:pod, seed, green, yellow, purple or even red striped beans:
- Dwarf bean "Contender" mangetout: very high yield, harvested early, eaten fresh or canned, perfectly suited to freezing.
- "Rhinegold" pole bean mangetout: late variety producing yellow pods about 20 cm long, long, flat and without string, eaten fresh, sautéed, in juice or in butter.
- Pole bean "Blauhilde" mangetout: variety with tasty and fleshy pods about 25 cm long, blue-purple in color with white grains. Their purple color turns dark green when cooked.
- Beware of the bean weevil which only attacks beans, but it can destroy an entire crop.
- To get rid of weevil, the safest way is to leave the seeds for sowing in the freezer for a few days.
- To keep aphids at bay, ladybugs are a valuable ally. You can also plant aromatic herbs such as savory.
- To keep green beans tender after cooking, click here to find out how.
Have you tried these gardening hacks to grow beautiful green beans? Let us know in the comments if it worked. We can't wait to read you!
