This is one I have never seen before. We have a very nice patch of green bean plants, they are sporadically producing blooms but there is absolutely nary a bean to be seen. These plants were planted at least two months ago. The bushes are growing very well, they look healthy but there is next to no blooms on them and no beans. They are planted in my garden and there was leaves, grass clippings and horse manure tilled in during the winter before we planted the garden. I have not added any additional fertilizer of any kind. Everything else is doing fine except the beans. They are not covered so it is not a question of the flowers not getting pollinated. Anyone have any ideas on what happened? Is it possible it is too hot for the beans to produce beans? We were only in the 80s for most of July so I can't imagine that would be too high. Where is greenbeanman when you need him? LOL

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), August 09, 2000

Answers

greenbeanman is lurking in the shadows just waiting until he is really needed, not that someone else can't answer just as easily. Probably what you have going on is what is called bloom blasting. While your temperatures don't really seem hot enough for that to be happening, I'm guessing that to be the problem. Soybeans sometimes have this problem as well as garden beans. I have the same thing occurring in my garden with cucumbers of a special variety. While one variety is setting and producing fruit, another variety is loaded with blooms and nary a fruit set on. I don't know if you had a soil test or not, but one thing that does sometimes help is phosphorus. An organic source is bone meal.

-- Notforprint (Not@thekeyboard.com), August 09, 2000.

Thank you very much. I have some bone meal on hand that I bought this year but only used it on my lettuce. I'll be heading out to the garden this evening as soon as it cools down to put some on the beans. The plants are still in good shape, hardly a bug hole on them so I think there may still be a chance to recover them.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), August 09, 2000.

Colleen, we had the same problem last summer and we were told that too much fertilizer will cause this!! This year we didn't use ANY fert. and our greenbeans are doing double time! I don't know if it was really the problem but it worked for us!

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), August 09, 2000.

Our beans a few years ago had blooms and tiny bean pods, but when picking time came, no beans were in sight. It stumped us completely-- until we caught our youngest boy out in the bean patch, munching down on the tender young pods. The idea of growing food out in the yard was endlessly fascinating to him at that point!

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), August 09, 2000.

Hi Colleen, it does sound like to much nitrogen in the soil. Beans will produce their own nitrogen in the roots and don't need as much as say, corn does. This same thing happened to me last year and I asked a neighbor lady about it. Her response was that I didn't plant them in the right "sign"! She always plants by the moon and she said beans should be planted in the breast (the zodiacal sign of Cancer). Tried it this year, but never got a chance to see if it worked, the rabbits had their own ideas!

-- Annie (mistletoe@earthlink.net), August 09, 2000.