I have 2 varieties of pole beans, Blue Lake and Fasold. The Blue Lake have not produced anything but some blooms, no beans. The Fasold have produced well but stopped during a period of extreme heat. They are still blooming and are setting pods again since it cooled off a little. More 100 degree days are coming so I don't expect much from them again for awhile. I don't know if it's a pollinator issue or if the temperature destroys the viability of the pollen. I haven't grown pole beans for many years but this is the first time I've had one bean crop that was totally unproductive. The Blue Lake were much later starting to bloom than the Fasold so it may still be a heat issue. Gardening is always full of puzzles like this. Sandy

Last year, I planted bush beans over the July 4th weekend, and froze enough beans to last through the winter... I'm still eating them. The average frost date here is around October 5th, so with a frost date 10-14 days later & more heat than I have, there is plenty of time to get a good crop. This year, I planted "Emerite" pole beans on July 5th, and they are beginning to climb & bud up, so they too should bear well before frost. Bush beans & English peas are good crops to plant in mid-summer bare spots, since they will not only give you food before frost, they will enrich the soil. I agree with OldDutch that beans - like many vegetables - are better flavored if harvested in cool Fall weather. I usually plant my snap beans earlier, but when the weather prevents that (as it did here last year) I can't help but notice that the quality of late-planted beans has been outstanding.

Pollination would not be an issue, since beans are self pollinating even without bees. Flowers that are not fertilized will drop without developing a pod. I have seen several factors result in bean plants aborting young pods. If beans have been left on the plant to develop seed, the plant will begin to abort younger pods when it reaches the maximum number of pods that it can grow to maturity (maximum pod load). It appears that the growing seeds need to reach a certain stage of maturity before the youngest pods get "cut off", and flowering stops. Since I save a lot of bean seed, I see this process quite often as the pods begin to fatten up... and it is probably the reason for most of the shriveling described in this thread. The same thing happens here sometimes after the plants have been kissed by a light frost... the plant puts all of its energy into ripening the pods which are most developed, at the expense of younger pods. I see this most often in lima beans (all of the young pods dropped from my vines last week) but the smallest snaps will shrivel too if there was extensive frost damage. Occasionally I have seen dry, rubbery pods appear on snap beans after they have been harvested for some time, at the end of the flush. My assumption is that this behavior represents a shift by the plant into a growth phase, since it is usually followed by the appearance of new shoots.

"wait, wait...are you saying I can put six HUNDRED plants in a 10x10 plot???" Those yields are based upon a degree of soil conditioning that is very labor-intensive... and while I have read of such recommendations, I have yet to see photos, or hear first-hand observations, proving that they would work for most gardeners. All of the digging aside, in my area, I'd be flirting with disaster if I crowded my beans that closely. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it. Most bush beans - when healthy & mature - have a footprint of 1/2 - 1 sq. ft. or larger. 100 plants (1 per sq. ft.) should be a safe bet; I've successfully used 6" between plants w/ 2-foot spacing between rows, which is close to the same thing. You might be able to get away with 2-3 plants per sq. ft. for the more compact varieties. Crowding more closely than that may work in the warm dry climate of California; but in the cooler, wetter Northern climes, it could lead to severe disease problems. I'm not saying that it wouldn't work... just that I wouldn't put all my eggs in that one basket, unless/until small-scale trials proved it to be successful. In a post above, I had mentioned "seed efficiency". To put that in perspective, large kidney beans are somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-60 seeds per ounce. If planted at the recommended bio-intensive density of 600+ for a 10' X 10' plot, you would need between 10-16 ounces of seed to plant... so you would need to buy (or save from the previous season) a pound of seed. Assuming you harvest 24 pounds of dry seed (which is, keep in mind, the best case scenario), it would represent a return of between 24/1 & 38/1, depending upon seed size. Most gardeners would get much less than that, since the maximum is for experienced gardeners, on well amended soil. In contrast, my observations are that large-seeded bush beans, given the 6" plant/2' row spacing I mentioned above, are easily capable of a seed increase of between 50/1 - 100/1. Small-seeded types will tend to yield about the same weight/plant, but at an even higher ratio of increase, well over 100/1... so in terms of cost effectiveness (if purchasing seed) small is often better. Pole beans can do better still; the "Striped Cornfield" I grew this year (@45 seeds/oz.) produced a return of over 500/1! My results were obtained by mechanical tilling, with leaves & mulch turned under each season. Using these numbers, the same kidney beans - if grown in 5 rows in the same 10' X 10' plot - would be 100 plants. This would produce between 5 & 10 pounds of seed minimum... with only 2 ounces of seed required for planting, the average in a packet of beans. Also, at this spacing, the plants have sufficient air flow through the foliage to minimize the chances of disease during prolonged periods of rainfall. Having tested that theory in some very bad years recently (such as in 2008) I consider these yields to be realistically attainable, year after year. I don't doubt that my spacings could be improved upon; it is something that I often experiment with. Most likely, there is a happy medium somewhere between row spacing & high-density plantings which will produce the best yield, for a given area, with the littlest possible seed. That "happy medium" should take into account the expected annual variations in climate, since what works well one year, might not work the next. With soybeans, I have had some success with closely-spaced double rows, with standard row spacing between the pairs... so that may work for bush beans as well. Given the observations I have made on over 100 bean varieties over the years, I expect the optimal spacing will vary widely, depending upon variety, climate, and soil fertility. So there is really no "one correct answer" for bean spacing... just starting points for personal experimentation. Keep in mind, John Jeavons' bio-intensive recommendations mentioned above pertain to bush beans only. Pole beans are not suitable for wide bed planting, due to shading. However, you can have the best of both worlds using pole beans. Planted in a single row on the North side of the bed (where they would not shade shorter crops), they take up a relatively small footprint. A high-yielding pole variety could give you 3-4 pounds of dry seed from one row in that same 10' X 10' bed. You could use the majority of the bed(s) for other things, and still get a good crop of beans. My apologies for all of the long (and probably dry) posts, but as an amateur researcher, I just wanted to share some "bean science". Just wish this was on the Bean Forum.