You can put a lot more than 4 plants per 4ft. You can put them every 6" or so with bush beans and every 3" or so with pole beans. It would help to know if they're bush or pole, but chances are heavy that they're pole types.

That said, if you want to eat them for anything but snap beans you're going to need a lot more than 4ft of beans unless you're just doing this for kicks. Dried, you're only get a few hand-fulls at best of dried beans off a pole variety and less off of a bush variety.

YOu can plant thicker but I think you husband is right.
your probably better off to just eat them.
What I like to do with dry goods from the store is sprout lentles. They make a nice salad ingredient with or with out other ingredients. 1/2 cup will fill my salad spinner. after it's sprouted.
If your near a Wal-mart you can get 25 cent packs of seeds for growing snap beans and other veggies.
find room to grow some of the yellow summer squash. They produce alot for little cost.
I tryed to grow dry beans from the store right before they should have flowered they turned brown and died.

nc -

From what I've read, commercially grown beans that you purchase in the grocery store are bush type, but hopefully they are pole type, since I know those produce more!

And yes, this is mostly "for kicks", and as I mentioned, to placate the hubbie since he thinks that we'll have pounds and pounds of beans from the few plants we have room for. I'm fully aware we won't LOL

Any input on the other questions?

Veggiecanner - hubby is actually the deluded one here, he thinks planting one row of beans will yield far more than it actually will. I'm humoring him by planting these at all LOL

Sprouting beans would be a great idea, so would buying other seeds, but my budget is tight and I'm working with what I have on hand.

I thought about squash, but no one eats them but me, and since they take up so much space (my garden is 4'x24') I budgeted space and $$ for other things that the whole family can eat.

You could tell your hubby that I think you might get a couple of tablespoons of beans per plant ;).

Commercial beans are most likely hybrids so there will be broad reversion to ancestral strains. Black turtle is I believe adapted to the southwest, the Chicago growing season may be too short for good maturity of dry seed. That may be true for kidney as well, not sure.

On quantities:

I grew two roughly 50-foot rows of pole beans last year, plus another 50-100 feet of bush, and a couple hundred feet of cowpeas. Altogether the dry bean harvest was not more than 30-40 lbs, about enough for myself for the winter. I had a late infestation of MBB that cut production significantly, so the yield would have been maybe twice without a pest problem.

I think all peas and beans are open polinated.
At least I can't find any on line seed stores that have hybrid ones.
And comercial dry beans are bush type so they can be harvested with machines.

This post was edited by veggiecanner on Wed, Apr 24, 13 at 20:31

I actually experimented with grocery store black beans last summer. Assumed they would be bush beans and they weren't. They did well in the Florida heat. I picked the pods young ( as green beans) and sauteed them in butter. They needed a slightly longer cooking time but were pretty good.

After a while I quit picking and let the pods turn brown. Once they were dried (you can split a few open to see if they are close to the color you planted) I picked them and put in a pillowcase so I could beat them to separate. I ended up with about the same amount of beans that I planted plus enjoyed some green beans. If it gets too wet and they don't seem to be drying but look mature you could spread them on a towel indoors to dry. I think I did that anyway because I didn't want to wait for the vines to completely dry.

I would plant a two parrallel rows of beans 4 inches apart with the rows being about 5 inches apart to allow for a trellis just in case they are pole.

Let us know how it goes!

@pnbrown:

So, that's about 450-600 plants for 30-40 pounds, or 15 plants for 1 pound?

And the OP is talking about 4 plants, which might produce 1/4 pound? Or more (or less) with better (or worse) pest luck?

That sounds remarkably similar to my 'couple of tablespoons per plant' guess, which I totally pulled out of my, um, hat.

I have read that in P.Vulgaris bush habit is recessive and generally exists as a hybrid variety. Climbing habit dominates. OP varieties of "bush" beans then would be a stabilized population with a recessive trait, similar to a population of people with blue eyes, maybe.

I think it is immensely likely that there are hybrid versions of black turtle beans used by large-scale growers, but they may all be drawn from a landrace that has the recessive trait. I have grown out grocery pinto beans and they seem to have the climbing habit, even though surely the commercial varieties would be bush.

Aren't the grocrey store beans commercial?

So it seems like, considering the amount of space I do have, and the smaller space needed between the plants, I could actually plant maybe about 24 plants.

Thanks for all the great info so far!

What about the cloning and harvesting questions?

Yes: the pinto beans bought at the grocery are no doubt harvested from a bush-habit plant. IME, when grown out the new plant exhibits a climbing habit. This would be the typical situation in growing out the offspring of a hybrid bush cultivar, I think.

edit - [Too far off topic. Annoyed some persons. Deleted.]

This post was edited by albert_135 on Tue, May 21, 13 at 16:27

Thank you, Albert! That's very informative. How did they thresh them, do you know?

So if they are climbing type, which would be more like a vine, I could possibly clone them I would guess. Does anyone have any idea about the harvesting questions I asked? They are as follows:

3. If I pick off pods at some point, will this at all encourage them to grow more? Say for example, if I pick them off to dry them myself, as opposed to waiting for them to dry on the vine? Can you even do that?

4. I understand that they might not set pod once temps reach 80 and above. Being in Chicago, that means potentially by mid-June, but more likely July and August. If they have not set pods by then, will they never set pods, or will they simply set pods later in the season after it cools off again?

5. If they do set pods before the temperature gets too high, and I harvest them, will they again set pods once the weather cools again?

6. I have read in many places that you are actually supposed to wait for the plant to DIE before harvesting the beans. How accurate/efficient is this?

7. Lastly, again being in Chicago, we tend to have a very wet fall season. I understand this can complicate the drying process, so what would the recommendation be as far as harvesting the beans before they might be completely dry on the vine, but before the weather gets too wet? I guess this might be answered by other questions, but if not, would be helpful to know as well.

It has to get super-hot, and hot at night to prevent beans from flowering. That is a problem mostly for florida, not chicago.

IME, letting seed dry on the vine is best.

I'm not sure what you mean by cloning.

As veggiecanner said earlier, there are no hybrid beans. The mechanics of cross-pollinating beans makes it impractical to produce seed this way on a large scale. Corn and tomatoes are a totally different story.

Very few pole beans are sold for cooking and when they are, the price is much higher than for typical grocery store beans because they must be harvested by hand. Tarbais, prized in France, is an example of such a bean.

So, what has happened when a plant from grocery store seeds grows tall? I have to ask, how tall? Some bush beans put out pretty long runners, but they don't grow to a height of 8 feet or more as pole beans typically do. I haven't seen it myself but I suggest they were a tall growing bush bean, not a pole bean.

Jim

It is likely that the growth habit is a continuum, not the neat categories of "bush" and "pole". Some varieties might be truly bush or pole, and many others might be in between.

For example, last year I grew black-eyed peas - which are typically considered bush habit - on a trellis and some leaders reached 7-8 feet. So perhaps there is a response to support from the plant, as well.

I pre-sprouted them in baggies, and planted them yesterday. We'll see what happens!

Thanks for the follow up, purple!
Glad you were pleased with the experiment. I always grow some beans to dry, and find they are best shelled while watching basket ball in the evening :) And heck, a cup of beans will make a pot of chili for several people.

To me growing beans and peas as dry goods, is just pointless, economically speaking. Unless they are RAE and exotic. Alot of dry beans are sold for about $1/lb-$2/lb.

My dry beans are so much better than store-bought that I can't hardly eat them anymore.

"I plan to pre-sprout them so that I only plant the ones that are definitely viable..."

Too much labor. A bag of seed is $1.50 - just soak the beans overnight and plant. Plenty will come up. Trust me.

"I have no idea exactly what variety these are, how long it will take them to mature and put out fruit, etc. "

It makes little difference; they are all about the same.

"I do know that they are most likely bush beans, but I do plan on giving them some support if necessary. "

It won't be. Let em do their thing.

My questions are:

"1. If I am planting one 4-ft row, would 4 plants be too many for that space? I may not get many... DH seem to believe that the time and effort to harvest them may far outweigh the relatively cheap cost at which they can be purchased and low output of bean plants."

Plant them 4" apart all around - 9-12 per SQUARE FOOT.

DH is RIGHT, TOO. I grow them as cover and forage for chickens. And I eat some.

But it takes a LOT of plants to make a season.

Machine methods make them cheap. But you don't need to adopt them. Grow in sq . foot groups.

"2. Since there is a chance that they may be slightly more vine-y than bush-y, is there also a chance that I might be able to clone them?"

Don't bother - too much labor again for cheap seed. Just plant more beans. And it won't work anyway; theu don't grow from cuttings.

"3. If I pick off pods at some point, will this at all encourage them to grow more?

Yes, They keep producing for 2-3 pickings, when picked green.

"Say for example, if I pick them off to dry them myself, as opposed to waiting for them to dry on the vine? Can you even do that?"

Three pickings:

1. When young pods are about 3-4" long; eat like snap beans.

2. When matured, but still soft and green, as "edamame" or Southern-type "field peas,"

3. When completely dried as cooked beans and seed.

"4. I understand that they might not set pod once temps reach 80 and above. Being in Chicago, that means potentially by mid-June, but more likely July and August. If they have not set pods by then, will they never set pods, or will they simply set pods later in the season after it cools off again?"

Pinto's, Navy's, Limas - they will struggle setting in the heat.

Black beans, field peas/cowpeas, lentils, pigeon peas - they love the heat.

"5. If they do set pods before the temperature gets too high, and I harvest them, will they again set pods once the weather cools again?"

Possibly. They don't last long, and too early will subject them to bean beetles. Once they give their all, I suggest you chop em em up and compost em. Better to grow two crops than try to hold one.

"6. I have read in many places that you are actually supposed to wait for the plant to DIE before harvesting the beans. How accurate/efficient is this?"

For dried beans, sure. But once the pods are obviously dried, pull the plants up and re-use the space.

"7. Lastly, again being in Chicago, we tend to have a very wet fall season. I understand this can complicate the drying process, so what would the recommendation be as far as harvesting the beans before they might be completely dry on the vine, but before the weather gets too wet?"

Plant in late May and add plantings every two weeks until mid-July. Your last bunch will come off end of September/early October. Once the beans are mature, you can pull the plants, broom them and hang until completely dry if you wish.

By then you will have had your fill of beans, I assure you.

FWIW, I planted Black Turtle beans from the store some years ago & they were half-runner beans: longish vines, but not tall @ all & not too willing to climb - & delicious as snap beans.

Nice to know thanks!