anybody grow lima beans?

[amberg]

I think that all the pole type beans take much longer to mature. my problem is trying to get the lima's to come in at the same time as the corn. this year it was to wet to get them in in time, and my corn got to hard for good succotash, but we had to make it work. the tomato's are no problem. no I am not
commercial, as for all the sunflowers and sweet corn, the doves just love them, also the little yellow belly finch's, both come in by the thousands. plus I
love sweet corn, it also seems that your buddy's that you never see until that time of year seem to show up. they pull corn by the pickup loads. When it comes to shelling lima's I like to sit on my front porch and shell them. as I don't plant the small ones any more, would much rather pick and shell the big pole beans.

Did I mention that I like succotash! ( we have to buy butter by the case )
This is what we used to can every year, not able to do that any more.
green beans = 250 to 300 qts.
squash = 150 to 200 pts.
beets = 50 to 75 pts.

 

[Del_]

My dad's favorite pole lima was King of the Garden. It's a great lima and I think it out produces Dr. Martin. Dad had 4 150ft. rows ten ft. tall and would pick and shell quite a few for sale. He always had a long waiting list.

Chuck a part of why your limas take so long is because they are a tropical plant would enjoy a longer warm season that what you have. That and often the days to maturity listed is often quite optimistic.

Amberg welcome to the site. You sound like a serious home food grower. There's a few of us here but not many. Chuck is serious, too.

 

[amberg]

My dad's favorite pole lima was King of the Garden. It's a great lima and I think it out produces Dr. Martin. Dad had 4 150ft. rows ten ft. tall and would pick and shell quite a few for sale. He always had a long waiting list.

Chuck a part of why your limas take so long is because they are a tropical plant would enjoy a longer warm season that what you have. That and often the days to maturity listed is often quite optimistic.

Amberg welcome to the site. You sound like a serious home food grower. There's a few of us here but not many. Chuck is serious, too.

Yes, my family was very serious about the garden, I remember back in the early 60's helping my grandfather and daddy putting up endless rows of tee pee
poles for lims's, and my grandmother hauling them in by the bushell in her apron. back then 95% of what we ate came from the garden, if you didn't like
what was on your plate you went hungry. I guess I was lucky because I seem to like about everything we grew. esp. green peas, snaps, squash, taters, onions, maters, peppers, and of course corn and lima's. back then we had to eat field corn. when I got my first taste of silver queen in the seventy's I started planting it with the 6 row allis chalmers no-till planter, as I still do to this day. 40# of sweet corn seed = $$$$

 

[chuckwood]

My dad's favorite pole lima was King of the Garden. It's a great lima and I think it out produces Dr. Martin. Dad had 4 150ft. rows ten ft. tall and would pick and shell quite a few for sale. He always had a long waiting list.

Chuck a part of why your limas take so long is because they are a tropical plant would enjoy a longer warm season that what you have. That and often the days to maturity listed is often quite optimistic.

Wow! 600 feet of beans ten foot tall. I've got maybe a 100 feet of six foot fence, and the vines seem to want more. So your dad picked with a step ladder?

Yeah, that makes sense about the length of growing season. The beans seem to grow very slowly until the summer heat kicks in. I think I'll use this in my next post in the global warming thread. I want more GW so I can grow more beans and grow 'em faster!

 

[chuckwood]

back then we had to eat field corn. when I got my first taste of silver queen in the seventy's I started planting it with the 6 row allis chalmers no-till planter, as I still do to this day. 40# of sweet corn seed = $$$$

Many years ago, a friend of mine who knew nothing about gardening got the bright idea that he could get all the corn he wanted for free. He stopped on a country road, and picked bushels of corn out of a 100 acre field corn patch. He figured the farmer would never miss the corn or notice him there. He was real disappointed when he boiled up a batch of his ill gotten corn on the cob.

Here's my corn planter machine, not much to brag about but much faster than doing it by hand. It plants a multitude of different sized seeds, you just change out the various plastic wheels that come with it. And yeah, it has a lima bean wheel.

 

[amberg]

chuckwood, would love to have seen the look on his face when he chomped down on the first ear. I have one of those planters too, can't beat it for beet seeds, also used it for butter beans and snaps when I didn't feel like using the corn planter. haven't used it in over 10 years, not able to take care of a huge garden anymore, arthritis is taking its toll on me.

they make a fertilizer attachment for them also but I never used it.

 

[jakethesnake]

Just a tip on cooking Lima I grow doc martins also. Grandma used salt pork seared in the bottom of a pot or bacon then add beans toss em round . Add water boil till they're tender but add sugar to them sounds weird but I turn my nose up unless they are cooked that way. And sweet corn must be in it ambrosia is my fav variety pioneer seed sells it also you can add tomatoes right at the end of cooking them and it's really good if you put the tomatoes in too early the beans don't get tender the right way

 

[jakethesnake]

Another thing everyone knows I guess if you let your beans dry on the vine you have seed. Keep them in a mason jar in the freezer and they last 10 years or so

 

[Del_]

I've been having serious problems with Megacopta cribraria on my pole limas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacopta_cribraria

 

[Del_]

Another thing everyone knows I guess if you let your beans dry on the vine you have seed. Keep them in a mason jar in the freezer and they last 10 years or so

I'm a lifetime member of the Seed Savers Exchange. Been so for 35 years now.

 

[jakethesnake]

Do they eat holes in the pods?

 

[Del_]

Do they eat holes in the pods?

No.

They suck the life out of the plant stems resulting in greatly reduced yields. Very hard to control.

 

[jakethesnake]

Wow they suck no tips or help for those keep em down there I don't want em

 

[chuckwood]

I've been having serious problems with Megacopta cribraria on my pole limas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacopta_cribraria

Great. All we need is another type of stink bug. The regular stink bugs are all over the place here, and I'm in an older home that has gaps and places where they can get in. They get into my kitchen all the time and this past summer the inevitable happened. One got in my salad and I crunched a live one in my mouth, almost threw up. I vacuum them up a lot, and hundreds of them get jammed in the vacuum cleaner and stink so bad it makes my eyes burn. Would Sevin pesticide work ok on Megacoptas? Since the pesticide doesn't make actual content with the limas in their pods, that's probably what I would try to use first instead of the much more expensive organic pesticides.

 

[chuckwood]

Another thing everyone knows I guess if you let your beans dry on the vine you have seed. Keep them in a mason jar in the freezer and they last 10 years or so

My package of Doc Martin seeds has arrived. A package of ten seeds, cost around 8 bucks including postage. They're mighty proud of those beans. So I'm growing my own seeds out of this first crop.

 

[jakethesnake]

Ha I coulda sent you some wow. I guess home sl mine could be crossed with king of the garden by now I grow them both in the same plot anyone know if they cross pollinate or if they just stay the same ??

 

[Del_]

Ha I coulda sent you some wow. I guess home sl mine could be crossed with king of the garden by now I grow them both in the same plot anyone know if they cross pollinate or if they just stay the same ??

I believe about 30ft. is needed for separation but you will still get some random crossing. When choosing beans to save for seed be sure to select those that resemble the cultivar you are trying to save!

 

[chuckwood]

I believe about 30ft. is needed for separation but you will still get some random crossing. When choosing beans to save for seed be sure to select those that resemble the cultivar you are trying to save!

I never thought about cross pollination. I've still got a lot of seeds of King of the Garden variety in the freezer. I may wait a year now before planting the Martins and use all the Kings up first.

 

[Del_]

I never thought about cross pollination. I've still got a lot of seeds of King of the Garden variety in the freezer. I may wait a year now before planting the Martins and use all the Kings up first.

What I would do is to plant the Dr. Martins a good distance away from your king of the garden limas to grow a seed crop of Dr. Martin. Ten seeds become hundreds. Don't forget to select only the best seeds for a seed crop like good plant breeders do. Remember that seeds are a living resource and if we don't grow them out.....we lose them in time. Don't give up on the limas that have been your standard for a new variety in one big leap. Stick with what has worked and slowly move into new cultivars..

 

[Backyard Lumberjack]

I grew some Lima's bush type, several years back in my garden. bush type and they got real big. very tasty beans, fresh off the lima bush. imo, right up there with asparagus and fresh early English peas.