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Old November 17, 2015   #27
Zone9b
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Central Florida
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Originally Posted by greenthumbomaha View Post
My story is similar but I didn't take any samples in to be evaluated. My bean crop was a complete failure much to my dismay as I love green beans as a side dish. I requested easy to grow beans in last years swap and Gary sent a generous assortment. I didn't get a single bean except for one pole bean late in the season. Everything was slow to come up and none of the bushes or vines looked healthy and green. I had just started planting in a new raised bed with sandy native soil topped in bagged organic cow manure. I attributed the poor performance to the bed being too hot, but the leaves looked like the second photo with the grey mold. Out of maybe 20 varieties, the only producer was a store bought package of Fordhook Lima Beans and it was very late to produce.
The tomatoes in the next raised bed did fine in the same soil mix. I'll be rotating tomatoes into this bed next season. I put lots of leaf mulch on top and some grass too just before the weather tanked. I would like to avoid any chemicals. I hope the bed will improve over the winter.
- Lisa
Enjoyed reading your post. Normally as the summer warms up here in Central Florida Lima beans do better than snap beans. Limas here are often referred to as Butter Beans or Butter Peas. They also do much better here in the native soil than most snap beans, meaning they are more tolerant of poor sandy soil.
At this time, I would normally still be harvesting fall pole and bush snap beans but this year I just put them out of their misery and pulled them.
I have somewhat of a plan for the coming spring season. I hope to begin by getting a soil test for my native soil garden and one from one of my compost raised beds. Depending on that I will either add lime or use an acidifier. I intend on adding cow manure compost and kelp meal to my native soil and kelp meal and more new compost to my raised beds. I will use agri-fos fungicide early and possibly a mild pesticide if it appears necessary.
Also, I hope to try some new bush bean varieties.. I will try Boone bush beans and Lewis bush beans which appear to be about as disease resistant as any variety. I will also plant instead of my usual Jade II bush bean, the original Jade bush bean. It appears that the original Jade is more disease resistant than Jade II. For a pole bean I will continue to use Rattlesnake in the native soil and I will try for the first time Kentucky Wonder pole beans in compost raised beds.
I also love eating garden snap beans but for now I will have to be happy with Costco organic green beans.
Thanks for your interest and good luck next season,
Larry

Last edited by Zone9b; November 17, 2015 at 09:32 PM.
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