Lima Bean

Tips And Hints For Growing Easy-Care Warm-Season Crops

Planting months: April, May, June. Spacing: sow seed, thin 11/2 inches apart. Special Tips: grows best inland, but not in desert (high temperatures sabotage bean set.) Bush limas give quicker harvest than pole beans. Pole beans can be grown up corn stalks. Presprout seeds to speed harvest. Don’t overwater. When limas are thirsty, leaves leaves turn dark green and start to turn up, (from horizontal to vertical) Feed lightly 3 weeks after seeds are up and during peak of growth. Picking when leaves are wet can spread rust. Harvest: when pods swell, yet remain green with three or four beans in the pod. 65-75 days for bush beans, up to 78-95 days for pole bean, depending on variety. Recommended Varieties: Fordhook, Fordhood Baby, King of the Garden, and Burpee’s Best.

Step-By-Step Method For Growing Great Organic Vegetables By Pat Welsh Author Of : Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month By Month.

NOTE: If you are growing vegetables year-round there will be some carry over of cool-season crops into warm weather, for example artichokes, which can be put in from transplants in March and harvested in June, or globe onions, which are planted from seeds in November and harvested in late May or June, and strawberries which are also planted in November and harvested throughout spring into early summer.