If you want to grow beans that are particularly easy to care for, choose the low-growing bush beans. They are suitable for vegetable dishes, soups and salads, require little work and are ready to harvest after just a few weeks. They are ideal as secondary crops and enrich the soil with valuable nitrogen.
How can you grow bush beans easily and successfully?
Bush beans are easy-care, high-yielding plants that are well suited as secondary crops. They require little maintenance, enrich the soil with nitrogen and are usually ready to harvest after 10 weeks. For cultivation, it is recommended to use resistant new varieties.
Large selection
Bush beans are available in a large selection. The best known are the green fillet beans and the yellow wax beans. So-called hen types such as “Golden Teepee” form their fruits above the leaves and make harvesting easier. The varieties with blue pods such as “Purple Teepee” and “Bluevetta” appear extravagant.
Resistant new varieties
In addition to the proven, high-yielding varieties, you should also pay attention to new varieties. They are resistant to diseases such as bean mosaic virus or burning and fat spot disease and are very weather-resistant. Resistant varieties are not inhibited in their growth and crop failures are not to be expected.
Only a few weeks until the harvest
Most bush beans only need ten weeks until their first harvest. Early ripening varieties can do it in just six weeks. The maintenance effort until then is low.
The bush bean seeds can be sown directly into the warm bed. Care consists of regular watering and weeding. You only need to fertilize when preparing the soil.
Bush beans as a secondary crop
Bush beans are low-eaters and therefore an ideal secondary crop. Where heavy-consuming vegetables such as potatoes, tomatoes or zucchini previously grew, you can then plant the bed with bush beans.
Because of their short maturation time, bush beans are also suitable as a follow-on crop after early vegetables. Once you have harvested peas or carrots, you can sow bush beans on the same bed until the end of July.
Bush beans as a source of nitrogen
Bush beans are able to bind nitrogen from the air and release it into the soil via their roots. Not only do they feed themselves with nitrogen, subsequent vegetables also benefit from the nitrogen enrichment of the soil. The roots therefore remain in the ground; you only remove the upper part of the plant after harvesting.
Tips & Tricks
You can't get enough of the tender French beans. Then just grow them twice in a row. If you sow for the first time in May, you can harvest in July. You can grow again in the same place until the end of July, then you will have fresh beans until October.