Vegetable Garden Seeds

Lima beans and baby lima beans, which are the small seeded variety call butter beans, belong to the healthy legume family. Besides for the fact that they are good for you, they have a nutlike flavor and are fairly easy to grow in your vegetable garden. Nevertheless, they do especially need a long, warm summer ionamin without prescription in order to mature and this is the reason they are mainly grown in warmer regions. You may want to try growing fava, or broad beans, if the climate in your area not right for limas. The fava, or broad beans need a long cool growing season plus they have the advantage of producing well with very little care.

Lima beans can be grown as either bush plants or pole plants. Pole beans take longer to ripen, even though they will have a larger yield from a smaller space, than the bush beans. Pole lima beans will mature in about three months; this is roughly two weeks after the bush varieties will begin to yield.

When you prepare your garden soil for lima beans, you will need to fertilize it with a 5-10-10 mixtue. Plant your seeds at about the same time that you set out such garden vegetables as cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes. Your bush lima seed should be planted from 1 to 1 1/2 inches deep, and the spacing should be 2-3 inches apart with your rows about 2 feet apart. Bush beans will require roughly 4 inches between plants; so unless every seed germinates, you don't need to do any thinning.

The supports for lima beans can be done several ways. If you have a double row, you can set stakes on both sides; wire netting is a good method; or a pole that you have attached string to and leading down to pegs set in a tepee shape. The supports need to be built before you sow the seeds. Lima bean plants are heavier than snap beans; therefore the supports for limas should be sturdier. They will also grow taller, that is 8 feet as opposed to 6 feet for snap beans.

If you decide to plant your pole beans along a fence, you will want to sow single seeds 3-5 inches apart. Thin the seedlings to a spacing of roughly 6-10 inches. In order to grow plants on poles, you need to stake out the supports 2 feet apart in rows that are 3 feet apart. You can plant about six seeds around each pole, and then thin out to three or four seedlings.

You want to cultivate your lima beans shallowly and only during dry spells because they are especially sensitive to mildew and other diseases. You will need to water them at the soil level, but never from above, and always in the morning so the sun has a chance to dry off any moisture that has fallen on the plants. You want to mulch to conserve moisture in the soil and this also helps to keep weeds to a minimum. Fertilize this part of your vegetable garden sparingly.

If your lima beans blossom when it is extremely hot they may not set. If you live in the South, the lima-bean pod borer may polish off the seeds inside the pods. Early plantings are less susceptible to this insect and cleaning up leaves will remove their nesting places.

When the pods are round and firm and you can see the shape of the beans inside, it is time to harvest. Pick as often as the beans ripen, because the mature beans will discourage new growth on the plant.

Near the end of the season you can let the remaining beans dry before you pick them. You will then want to sterilize them in a very low oven, close to an hour, and then seal them in jars. Home-dried lima beans can be stored for several months.

 

Tagged with: Broad Beans • Lima Bean • Peppers And Tomatoes • Tepee Shape • Vegetable Garden Seeds