For ensured success in your first garden, plant some bean seeds. They're large and easy to plant, they grow easily, and they don't require lots of extra fertilizer or care. Within 60 days, you’re bound to have some beans to eat. The following list looks at bush and pole beans and suggests some varieties for you to try in your garden. (Bush and pole beans actually are the same type of bean, just with different growth habits.)

• Bush beans: These beans grow on a bush and tend to produce the earliest crops, maturing all at once (within a week or so). The plants generally are less than 2 feet (61 cm) tall and produce handfuls of beans at harvest. Depending on the variety, the beans are green, yellow, or purple. Most pods (the part of the bean that you eat) are 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) at maturity, but you can harvest beans that are flavorful sooner. Here are a few of the most reliable varieties:
  • 'Provider': Green pods mature 50 days from seeding. Great disease resistance and can grow in adverse weather conditions.
  • 'Roc D'or 'Wax': Long, slender, round, bright yellow pods are produced on sturdy plants in 53 days.
  • 'Sequoia Purple Pod': Attractive purple-podded bean also has purple-colored stems, leaves, and flowers. Matures in 53 days, and it turns dark green when cooked.
• Pole beans: Pole beans need staking and usually grow on poles. They tend to mature their crops later than bush beans, but pole beans continue to produce all season (about a handful of beans per day) until frost or disease stops them. Here are two you may like to try:
  • 'Goldmarie': Early yielding, wax pole bean variety produces 8-inch (20-cm) pods 54 days from seeding.
  • 'Purple Pod': Purple-colored variety grows on a 6-foot-tall (2 m) plant and matures 65 days from seeding. Color changes from purple to dark green when cooked.
• Dried and shell beans: Dried beans are actually varieties of bush or pole beans. You can eat them fresh, like bush or pole beans, but they're better if you allow them to dry and then just eat the bean seeds. Plant them, care for them, and harvest them when the pods are dried and the plants are almost dead. The seeds can range from white to red and can be striped and spotted. Consider the following for your garden:
  • 'Black Turtle': Small black bean matures 85 days from seeding. Grows best in warmer climates. Each pod produces 7 to 8 beans.
  • 'French Horticultural': An old-time favorite, tan-colored bean matures in 90 days.
  • 'Navy': Small, semivining plant produces white, oval beans 85 days from seeding.
  • 'Vermont Cranberry': Widely adapted, red, brown-speckled, New England classic matures 90 days from seeding.

Ack! My Bean Is Bald!

If your bean seedlings emerge from the soil without any leaves, they may have a condition called bald heading.  ....read more