Grow Your Own Gourmet Green Beans

Highly productive, tough, and relatively simple to cultivate, snap beans deserve a place in virtually every home vegetable garden. With countless varieties available and numerous methods for growing them, it can be tempting to try them all. Here, however, the focus is on producing exceptionally tasty green beans at home—beans that are more tender, crisp, and flavorful than many of those available at the grocery store.

After growing dozens of bean varieties over many years of gardening, I have developed fairly particular preferences. I look for snap beans with a wonderfully crisp texture, no unpleasant strings, and enough natural sweetness and flavor to make them tempting to eat straight from the garden. Even so, most of my harvest eventually finds its way into a skillet, the freezer, or a jar of pickles.

Gourmet Green Bean Varieties

When outstanding flavor and delicate texture are the goal, filet beans, also known as haricots verts or French beans, are among the finest choices. Their pods are slender and rounded, and depending on the cultivar, they can appear green, yellow, or purple. Excellent examples include the bush variety ‘Maxibel’ and the pole variety ‘Emerite’.

Last year, I grew the small purple-podded ‘Velour’. Despite unfavorable weather, it produced an impressive harvest that worked wonderfully both for fresh meals and for freezing. Like other purple snap beans, however, its beautiful purple color disappears when the pods are blanched or cooked, turning them green.

The drawback of delicate filet beans is that their narrow pods require a large harvest to fill a basket. For that reason, most of my garden space goes to excellent standard snap bean varieties. These produce larger pods that are long, straight, tender, and stringless.

One variety I particularly enjoy is ‘Amethyst’, partly because its purple blossoms are attractive. My preferred approach, though, is to plant a mixture of green-, purple-, and yellow-podded beans. Many seed suppliers sell these combinations as mixed packets. If you prefer to keep each type separate, you can sort the seeds by their appearance and sow them in individual rows.

Seed color can often provide a clue to the eventual pod color. Most green-podded snap beans have white seeds, purple-podded varieties commonly have tan seeds, and many yellow-podded beans have black seeds, although there are exceptions.

Choosing Between Bush Beans and Pole Beans

Another important decision is whether to grow bush beans or climbing pole beans. Pole beans have long, vigorous vines and generally produce more food from a given amount of garden space. Watching the vines race up a homemade teepee or trellis can also be part of the fun.

However, climbing beans can attract Japanese beetles. Because the vines grow at a convenient height for these insects, they can become easy places for the beetles to feed and gather. When I grow pole beans, I need to remove Japanese beetles regularly by dropping them into a container of soapy water. At night, I also cover the plants with tulle or wedding netting to protect them from deer.

Bush beans make these chores considerably simpler. They grow rapidly, remain relatively compact, and finish producing early enough that their growing space can often be reused for fall crops.

I prefer to make several smaller plantings of different bush bean varieties rather than sowing everything at once. This keeps a succession of young plants developing and provides beans with different characteristics throughout the season. With so many possibilities to try, there is little reason for a bean grower to become bored.

Protecting Young Bean Plants From Cutworms

Beans are traditionally sown directly into the garden once the soil has warmed in late spring. Another option is to start the seeds in small containers and transplant the seedlings into prepared beds after approximately two weeks.

Bean seeds are quick to germinate, and young seedlings generally appear within only a few days regardless of which method you use. When direct-sowing, however, avoid thinning the seedlings too soon. Cutworms may damage or kill some of the young plants, naturally reducing the number of seedlings.

A simple way to protect young bean plants is to place wooden toothpicks in the soil immediately beside their stems. These can interfere with cutworms and help prevent them from reaching and damaging the seedlings.

Growing Productive Gourmet Green Beans

Give beans fertile soil and plenty of sunshine, and they can grow remarkably quickly. Their vigorous development soon fills their allotted space, while their rapid growth also makes weeds relatively easy to spot and remove.

Many bean plants begin producing flowers after roughly six weeks. Fast-growing bush varieties can be ready for harvest in fewer than 60 days, making them particularly useful when you want a quick crop or several plantings throughout the season.

Harvesting and Preserving Your Bean Crop

One reason truly gourmet green beans are uncommon in supermarkets is their delicate nature. The pods are too fragile for rough mechanical harvesting and long-distance transportation. Home gardeners therefore have an advantage because the beans can be picked at exactly the right stage.

Once the plants begin producing heavily, plan to harvest about every other day. Using both hands while picking helps prevent unnecessary damage to the vines. I preserve some of my harvest by pickling it, but most goes into the freezer so it can later be used in casseroles and other dishes.

I eventually began using an inexpensive vacuum sealer when freezing beans. Removing the air before storage greatly reduces freezer burn and helps preserve the quality of the harvest.

Enjoying Green Beans Through Winter

For the best results, blanch the freshly harvested beans, cool them promptly, and seal them in airtight bags before freezing. Properly preserved beans can retain a remarkably fresh garden flavor even when served months later in December—provided, of course, that you have not eaten your entire supply before winter arrives.

Last summer, I found myself repeatedly complaining about having to pick, blanch, and freeze beans every time I turned around. Then, halfway through winter, the freezer supply was finally gone, and I discovered something new to complain about: having no more homegrown beans to eat.

Now that another bean-growing season has arrived, I am more than ready to plant another crop and fill the freezer with a fresh supply of crisp, flavorful gourmet green beans.