How many bean plants?

[WeeGarden]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of growing yin yang (cow beans?) beans this year for storing. How many plants would I realistically need to get maybe a litre jar of beans? I grew french beans, and I know that you have to keep picking to get more flowering, but if I was growing beans to dry, presumably I'd have to leave the beans on the plant and therefore would it affect how many beans per plant I would get?

I have a very small patch and just wondered if it was realistic to grow beans for drying.

Many thanks!
WG

[Hazel at the Hill]

There are more 'bean-headed' grapes than I on here, WG, but I do remember the 12 climbing 'Polish' french beans that I sowed last year for drying shelled out to just short of a litre jar.

I have oodles - if you'd like to try some, let me know.

[Gwen11ian]

I got about half a litre of dried runner beans last year, as the last growth from six plants. Once I get sick of eating them fresh, I just let the beans grow and dry on the plant. Obviously runner beans are different from yin yang beans, so you could do a bit of math as to the number of beans per pod and the number of pods per plant. If you're really limited for space, runner beans are great dried.. good tasting, large bite size. Reminded me a bit of large kidney bean. I've always found runners very prolific, and you can have the duel purpose of eating young fresh pods then letting the rest grow on to be dried. I'm sure someone else will come a long and give you a good idea as to numbers.

[kiwirach]

i'm not much of an expert, but can recount what i learnt from growing red kidney beans last year.
i trialled 6 red kidney bean (dwarf) plants to see what i'd get from them with regard to storage for use over winter. from those 6 plants i got 1/2 a jar (that nice french jam jar with the red checked lid!). for my purposes i reckon that 1/2 jar will do one lot of chilli!. so if i want enough beans to see me thru the winter, i need to grow upwards of 40-50 plants this year. Lucky for me i have a 10pole allotment!.

i'm not sure if the beans you want to grow are dwarf or climbing, but my thoughts are...climbing...shouldnt take up alot of room in a small garden...grow them up a fence....thats what my mum does in NZ. if they are dwarf plants....what about using them as edging plants round other crops?.

hope that helps some.

[Two_Sheds]

As a rough guide, I've got 100g dried bean per plant: I grow 100+ bean plants every year.

I've found Canadian Wonder (red kidney bean, dwarf) and Blue Lake (a white bean) to be the most prolific.
Cosse Violette is the earliest. White Emergo (butterbean) is very good too, but needs a long season, it's slow growing).

I haven't grown Cow Bean before, but it looks really nice

[WeeGarden]

Ah.. thanks for all the input, peeps!

Unfortunately, they're a dwarf plant so I think maybe it's not going to be too realistic to be able to grow enough in my tiny garden Although, never say never... might see how many more troughs/pots I can fit in. I'm so jealous of allotment holders (!) but know how much hard work goes in and I just don't have time to do it at the moment.

Twosheds - yes, the beans just look so great, which is why I wanted them for drying - would look looovely in a jar.

Hazel - thanks for your kind offer, but I don't think I have space for anything else this year. On another note - I did take some of your Lancashire Lad purple podded peas from the pass the parcel - thanks! Can you eat them whole like mangetout, or do they have to be shelled or dried?

[Hazel at the Hill]

Hazel - thanks for the offer, but I don't think I have space for anything else this year. On another note - I did take some of your Lancashire Lad purple podded peas from the pass the parcel - thanks! Can you eat them whole like mangetout, or do they have to be shelled or dried?

I suspect that they would be stringy as mangetout, so I shell them out (and eat them raw) or cook 'em for about 5 mins.

They have the most beautiful mauve flowers, and although they can be a little meally, and not as sweet as some, they can be dried and used as mushy peas - Flum's done this, I believe.

If she feels her ears burning, she'll be along and give her your thoughts, I'm sure.

[zazen999]

Wee; how many seeds have you got?

I block planted all my dwarf beans last year, and got a fair amount depending on the type...some I got loads from but some were struggling. If you are growing for drying rather than picking, then they can go closer together as long as you prop them up so that they don't flop on the floor [even though they are dwarf] - I put twigs around the sides for the outside ones to lean on.

[ginger ninger]

I grew Yin Yang beans last year, there a dwarf climbing variety but not the best when it comes to producing lots of pods, but what you do get is lots of beans in the pods that they produce up to 8 per pod, if your wanting a litre of beans I would suggest at least 20 plants, the flowers are lilac in colour an very pretty.

See below, these are the seeds I grew.

[WeeGarden]

Zazen, I haven't got the beans yet - will need a trip down to the garden centre.

Thanks Ginger ninger - will have to see what I can forgo to get 20 plants block planted.

[Hazel at the Hill]

I grew Yin Yang beans last year, there a dwarf climbing variety but not the best when it comes to producing lots of pods.....

Make your mind up!

[zazen999]

Zazen, I haven't got the beans yet - will need a trip down to the garden centre.

Thanks Ginger ninger - will have to see what I can forgo to get 20 plants block planted.

Do you mean yin yangs; or do you mean cow beans; they aren't the same thing

I don't think you can get the cow beans [as in two-shed's link] from garden centres; but ying yangs, the black and white ones - you can...I have a sneaky feeling that the ones in GN's link were not dwarfs.....when I grew them [although I grew so many that I need to refer to my notes but I definitely had a climber yin yang in there].

[ginger ninger]

Make your mind up!

I tell ya..I'm cracking up...there dwarf, sorry for the confusion.

[WeeGarden]

Do you mean yin yangs; or do you mean cow beans; they aren't the same thing

I don't think you can get the cow beans [as in two-shed's link] from garden centres; but ying yangs, the black and white ones - you can...I have a sneaky feeling that the ones in GN's link were not dwarfs.....when I grew them [although I grew so many that I need to refer to my notes but I definitely had a climber yin yang in there].

I mean yin yang - but some pages refer to them as 'yin yang, also known as cow beans' - I'm schooooo confused now?

If yin yang is the climber, then yin yang it is! Was it from Eden Project seeds?

[chriscross1966]

I think the confusion is caused by the fact that yin-yangs and cow beans look the same barring the fact that the colour on the y-y's is black wheras on cow beans it's reddish-brown.... Yin-yangs are dwarf kidney benas (therefore basically a dwarf runner), they crop fairly heavily if you treat them well, cow beans are a climbing bean but apparently not a runner bean per se. TBF it's all a bit of a moot point, they're far enough apart that they are unlikely to cross-breed and I personally divide the leguminous world into three types for the purposes of growing, hardy beans (like broad benas and peas) that I can get in either overwintering or start them early and hope to have them out before something tender needs the space (like the assorted cucurbits, fennel etc), tender dwarfs (which I don't really grow barring yin-yangs) and tender climbers (msot of my beans. This year the climbers I'll be growing are Borlottis (Firetongue), butter beans, gigandas, cow beans and Cherokee Trail of Tears for shelling (plus another one that's name escapes me, O'Driscolls?) and Cobras for a green bean, in the dwarf section we have yin-yang and soybeans for shelling and I doubt I'll grow a green dwarf bean again , plus the usual suspect broadies (Aquadulce and Sutton) and a couple of types of peas (a spring sowing of meteors for an early crop and Telefono for a main crop.....

Given how many seeds I've got I suspect I'll only have half-rows of the butter beans and gigandas, ditto the O'Driscolls and Cherokee T-o-T, ditto the y-y and soys, a half-row of cow beans, a row and a half of borlottis and a row of Cobras.... I was thinking of getting a pack of mixed beans from Tescos and seeign what I could grow from it, but that might be an experiment for another year....

chrisc