Dr. Martin pole lima bean - need info
Comments (30)
4SEASONca
11 years agodancinglemons
11 years agoRelated Discussions
Utah gardener wants to grow lima beans and black eye peas
Comments (5)Limas might need a soil temperature above 60 degrees. We usually plant them here after common beans. Check recommendations at Territorial Seed for daylength sensitivity in soybean varieties for edamame, recommended blackeyes or other cowpeas, ets. If you're interested in beans grown for their seeds instead of or in addition to pods, many common bean varieties are good candidates as well. You can also grow runner beans (bush or pole) in SLC. Be sure you cook the mature bean seeds before eating them (good advice for other beans, too). There are some new runner/common bean hybrids out now, too. They sound interesting. Haven't tries them. Here is a link that might be useful: Tenderstar runner/common pole bean...See MoreCorn, Pole beans, Squash? companion planting.
Comments (30)I'm giving this a try for the first time myself this fall. So far I've just got the corn in (it's an heirloom sweet corn variety that's supposed to get tall), and am giving it a head start before I plant the beans, then once the beans are up hopefully I will have time to add squash (since I'm doing this in the fall I'll need my squash in by August if I want to get a harvest before winter). I do wonder about some of the recommendations people give on the internet. A lot of them seem to be from people who've never actually tried it themselves. I would say you shouldn't blindly follow any guidelines on the internet about spacing, timing, and numbers of plants, since that really depends on the varieties you choose and probably some other things. Choose a corn variety that gets tall (some sweet corn varieties do, I don't think you necessarily have to get a dent corn), and a bean variety that's not that tall. Don't plant them all at once, but plant the corn first, then the beans, then the squash. And if you fail, well, the great thing about gardening is there's always next year! I assume most of us here are white folk who haven't had the benefit of generations of gardening knowledge being handed down to us by our tribe on how to grow crops this way, so of course there's going to be a learning curve. I mean, here we are reading snippets of how to do this on the internet and trying to reproduce it in our suburban backyards with some packets of hybrid seeds from Wal-mart! I guess what I mean is if my 3S garden doesn't work out this year, I'll try again a few times before I give up, tweaking it as I go. As for modifying this method, I'm tempted to try out an African themed okra/cowpea/watermelon patch. Hmm, wonder if that would work....See MorePole bean production in summer heat
Comments (8)I've grown pole lima beans in the Washington DC area since 1976, both large seeded and small seeded varieties. My favorite small seeded variety is Carolina. I've grown various large seeded varieties also including Burpee's best, Prizetaker, King of the Garden and one other that I forget. Some years I have had trouble with pod set with large seeded varieties. In Tallahassee in 1985 I had almost total set failure with Prizetaker but Carolina set in July. Nothing set after August although vines grew well until December frost. In the DC area since 1987 Carolina has always set reliably and large seeded varieties set enough so that gaps in production might be due to heavy pod load from previous sets. This was the case through 2009. Summer 2010 and summer 2011 were 1 degree warmer than any previous summer since 1874 with mean lows in the low 70s and mean highs in the low 90s and extended periods warmer than that. And these two years I had an alarming total crop failure both summers with Carolina and Florida Speckled Butter, though the vines grew well. After two months of dropped flowers I started getting sets the second week in September 2010, too late to mature before frost killed them. In 2011, cooler weather began the third week in August and I got sets and a decent single harvest before frost in early November. Other gardeners in my rental garden area (Beltsville) who had grown beans for many years also failed in 2010. No one else grew lima beans in 2011. There were some short term drought problems but that's typical in summers here and I don't think water stress caused the failures. These were also my two worst years for corn (after I got my earliest ears ever June 8 2010) but corn problems were due to an undetected phosphorous deficiency in the soil and to a new species of stink bug that is spreading in this area. Once I used a different fertilizer with more phosphorous my later corn yields were okay. My question is, has anyone else in the middle atlantic region, tidewater Va or the Carolinas, or the Southeast U.S. also had problems growing lima beans these past two summers after a long period of success? Farmers market producers in my area who grow in more rural locations did not have problems. I am a home gardener and grow veggies because my kids will eat mine more readily than they eat store bought ones. They don't like lima beans generally but consider mine a delicacy....See Morelima beans
Comments (27)Interesting, Bcnu. How long were you there? Did you have a chance to observe the performance of the vines over several years? While "7 Year" sounds worth growing, it should be noted that many limas will grow as perennials in tropical climates. San Diego doesn't always get a frost, and when that happened, my "King of the Garden" limas would winter over. However, while the yield the second year was very early, the quality was not as good as the first year from seed. It's been a bear of a year for me here; but the "Madagascar" limas that I mentioned earlier in the thread went in as planned, and survived the flooding that killed much of my garden. The vines, while not as vigorous as they should be, are blossoming & just beginning to form pods. As a rule, if I have blossoms by August 15th, I should get dry seed... so there is cause for optimism. The "Midwest monsoon" has finally broken, and the weather now is consistently 80's day/60's night - perfect bean weather. I'll post updates on this thread later in the season....See More
Macmex
5 years agorobert567
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agozeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
5 years agoMacmex
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agozeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
5 years agoMacmex
5 years agoDonna R
5 years agofusion_power
5 years agoHU-781890677
3 years agoMacmex
3 years agorobert567
2 years agorobert567
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoDr. Martin Lima is blooming, and first pods. Is growing just like other large limas for me, I was expecting troubles. How will I know if it really is true seed?
Flowers
First pods and thick vine
zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
2 years agorobert567
2 years agoGot some 1.5" limas, 2 or 3 to a pod before August. Plants were very vigorous in July, thou probably not that many pods are forming compared to the hundreds of flowers. When should I designate some pods to save?
zeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
2 years agoDeborah Susan
2 years agorobert567
2 years agoDeborah Susan
2 years agoDeborah Susan
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoThe last of my Dr Martin Lima beans were harvested yesterday before our first frost. They're delicious and I highly recommend them. I was doubtful in September, but I ended up with a huge yield, some of which could have used a few more weeks to finish growing and will be used for eating. This is a long season bean, so I really think starting seeds indoors in the future would be a good idea here in z6. The 1st photo is of my 2 trellises and the 2nd is my final yield minus what went into the pot. Not bad for the amount of growing space used although this variety produces long vines and I had to use tall tomato cages to catch what was over-growing the top of the trellis.
Eva Kodak
last yearrobert567
last yearEva Kodak
last yearOut of the first and second harvests, I'm averaging slightly over 1.5" but still shy of 2". The 6 plants that I'm growing are supported by a sturdy wood and wire trellis that has 8 hardwood stakes that are driven 18" into the ground.
My area is very prone to high winds during summer rains. I learned my lesson last year, losing my entire crop of limas, sugar snaps and my largest tomato vine to a thunderstorm that also took down several large trees in the area.
Out of the pods shown, I've been getting anywhere from 2 to 4 large beans, creamy green in color. We had some with dinner last night and true to their heritage, they did not disappoint in texture or flavor. Looking forward to seed saving from this year's harvest!
jolj
10 months agoMacmex
10 months agoEva Kodak
10 months agojolj
10 months agoHU-939938193
23 days agolast modified: 23 days ago
robert567