Bush Lima Beans?

[flowerbug]

do you grow them?

what kind(s)?

how do they do?

we've been growing the plain white fordhook type here for a long time and they do mostly ok, but this past year a large part of the harvest was only partially formed (true of almost all the beans grown). due to heat, drought, storms, etc.

so i'm looking for other varieties to add to the mix so that we can have more diversity in my planting (now that i have more space for an extra row and a half inside the fence plus more room outside the fence too).

climbers would be ok too, but i prefer to not get too many of those as i have limited fence space for those (and i have the scarlet runners and some others i grow too).

 

[w_r_ranch]

I'm trying the 'Fordhook 242' for the first time this year here. I did see a pole variety available as I was perusing the seed catalogs before I placed my order.

Have you ever tried soy beans??? I grew them last year &they're delicious fresh, so they are going in again this year!!!

 

[aftermidnight]

I grew German Red one year but we really don't have the climate for limas. People were franticly looking for Baby Fordhook a few years back, they were nowhere to be found. It looks like this place https://www.everwilde.com/store/Baby-Fordhook-Lima-Bean-Seeds.html is selling them again if anyone is interested. This variety was thought to be lost, just saying.

Annette

 

[flowerbug]

...Have you ever tried soy beans??? I grew them last year &they're delicious fresh, so they are going in again this year!!!

i planted three times this year and the chipmunks and rabbits ate all but three of them (out of several hundred planted). and while i tried to decoy, trap and hunt the varmints i wasn't able to get them in time. the three plants that survived were from a few seeds i poked in other gardens that they managed to miss (but they got a lot of the other ones i poked in other places too).

i have grown them before (the fields are full of the agricultural version around us usually at least every other year) and we liked them so i was looking forwards to refreshing my seed stock and having several meals from them. no luck. i barely have seeds to plant now for the next time, but at least they are refreshed. i might have to sprout them in pots and then plant out, which is too much effort for what should be a bulk crop...

i bet if i planted the organic soybeans that i used to grow (for making soymilk) they'd ignore them... one year i grew 40lbs of soybeans in several small patches around the gardens. i just finished using them up for worm food this past year.

 

[flowerbug]

I grew German Red one year but we really don't have the climate for limas. People were franticly looking for Baby Fordhook a few years back, they were nowhere to be found. It looks like this place https://www.everwilde.com/store/Baby-Fordhook-Lima-Bean-Seeds.html is selling them again if anyone is interested. This variety was thought to be lost, just saying.

Annette

the Fordhooks i grow can be on the smaller side so hard to say if they are the same or similar enough to not make much of a difference... seed sites are dangerous... luckily most of what they have doesn't appeal to me or i've already had them, tried them and moved on. gold rush sounds interesting though. must resist...

 

[Zeedman]

I have grown Fordhook 242 here, and really love the flavor, the large fat seeds, and long pods... it doesn't take long to shell a bowlful. Unfortunately, in my frequently wet summers, losses to rot were substantial. The quality is top notch IMO, were it not for the rot issue, Fordhook 242 would be the only lima I grew. Also grew Burpee Improved, a very large-seeded bush variety; but the yield was less than Fordhook 242, and it too had trouble with rot. For large-seeded bush limas, those are probably two of the best options.

There is far more variety available in small-seeded bush limas, although you might have to hunt to find sources. I grow an heirloom called Cave Dweller... SSE has two selections (black seeded & red seeded), the one I grew was the black-seeded. It was fairly early, had a decent yield of small, flat black beans, and the crop was mostly borne high & dry. I also have seed for the Cave Dweller red selection and for Little Rock Red, although I have yet to grow either.

Baby Fordhook sounds like it may be a great lima... thanks @aftermidnight for the link. Although there is no room in my grow out schedule for a couple years, I will probably order it & throw it in the fridge, for some future date.

For the most part, I have chosen to grow small- & medium-sized pole varieties. They have few losses to rot, and their very heavy yield per plant makes them worth starting as transplants.

 

[flowerbug]

I have grown Fordhook 242 here, and really love the flavor, the large fat seeds, and long pods... it doesn't take long to shell a bowlful. Unfortunately, in my frequently wet summers, losses to rot were substantial.

last year was rather amazing in your area, i recall seeing the weather radar being mostly rain there for long periods of time. we had a drought here at that time. our microclimate can have storms break up before they get to us, they split and go around, etc. a few miles north or south of us usually get rains that miss us.

i pick lima beans often enough that i don't lose too many to rot. we like them steamed at the early stage before they get too hard. last year i lost most of them from the heat and drought and even if i kept them watered it didn't seem to matter. i found out this past fall that the garden had "problems underneath" (a layer of carpeting that had been just buried instead of removed *SMH*) when i was doing another project so in some part of it that was certainly an influence. i've now removed the carpeting and hope it will do better next season. in clay though, so waterlogging can always be an issue.

what i mean by "lost" above is that the beans were not fully formed. they are edible as partially formed beans, but the harvest would have been triple had those formed.

we'll see what next season brings.

 

[aftermidnight]

Forgot to mention I've also grown Black Jungle Butter Beans a pole variety in the greenhouse, they were delicious but only had a couple of plants, just enough for a taste.

Annette

 

[Ridgerunner]

I just can't seem to grow lima's here. I've tried some pole varieties like Florida Speckled and I've tried the Fordhook 242 bush but the pods that form usually have no beans in them, the few that do rot. I planted about 30 feet of Fordhook 242 last year and only got one meal out of them. I had a lot of pods but no beans grew in them. One year I did get some Florida Speckled but for the amount of room and work they take it's just not worth it.

A couple of years back I planted Jackson's Wonder lima beans and got really good production, but the beans were small and did not have anything close to a lima taste. I might as well have planted shelly beans as far as taste goes.

Right now I'm not planning on planting any lima beans this year, it's just too frustrating.

 

[flowerbug]

@Ridgerunner do you have a diverse pollinator species mix? we have many different kinds of bees around here and they are always on the lima beans whenever there are flowers. i've never had any problem getting seeds to set or plants to grow, i just have had a few times when the beans start but they don't finish so i end up with stunted beans partially formed inside the pods.