Eat Like No One Else » Bush Beans

How to Grow Velour French Filet Beans (Haricot Verts)

admin — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:44:09 +0000

I like to grow different colored vegetables in my garden. It brings variety and excitement to the space. So along with some traditional green colored beans, I am also growing some purple beans – Velour French Filet beans. The purple color however will disappear when cooked, but they will look pretty in pictures next to my green ones. These beans can be picked when they are really thin, that is the beauty of the haricot vert (French for thin bean).

Pole or Bush
These are bush beans, so they do not need any support to grow. Just plant them in the grow and wait for your beans to come up, usually in 7-10 days. Mine took about a week to come up.

When to Plant
Beans can be planted after the risk for frost is over. You can keep planting them all the way into mid-summer. As long as the harvest happens before the first fall frost, you are safe.

Expected Harvest
I planted my beans after my spinach and lettuce turned bitter. The date was Sunday, June 12th. These beans take 51 days, so I should be harvesting right around the beginning of August.

How to Grow Tavera French Filet Beans (Haricot Verts)

admin — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:34:32 +0000

In the gardening world you have to have the attitude of if you don’t succeed try again. Last year, the animals keep me from enjoying any French filet beans. This year I have changed my strategy and the seeds were planted in an area where animals are rarely an issue. I choose to try these types of beans for two reasons: first they are thin, so they are not too beany, and second they are expensive to buy in the grocery store. I pick out 3 different kinds of haricot verts to grow this year, all a different color. The first one I will discuss is the Tavera. They are a traditional green color.

Expected Harvest
I planted my beans after my spinach and lettuce turned bitter. The date was Sunday, June 12th. These beans take 54 days, so I should be harvesting right around the beginning of August.

Where to Buy Filet Bean (Haricots Verts) Seeds?

admin — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:45:49 +0000

There is nothing I like better fresh out of the garden than beans. The tenderness and flavor cannot match what you get in the grocery store. In my search for the perfect beans there is one thing I always rule out, growing meaty beans. That is beans that tend to grow large seeds rather quickly. I have tried different bush bean varieties with varying results. Some have been good, and some not so much. Last year I grew filet beans, also called haricot verts or French beans (not French cut beans, that is a style of slicing green beans). These beans are naturally thin and are string less. You can buy them in some specialty grocery stores, but you are going to pay an arm and leg for them. So that is another great reason to grow them yourself.

Last year I grew some filet beans for the first time. Unfortunately I had a lot of problems last year to be able to fully review all the varieties I grew (I had 3). The combination of my garden flooding right after planting and a couple week visit by some Japanese beetles, pretty much wiped out most of my crop. One variety I grew (Concador) was completely wiped out. The other two I grew were called Tavera (Green) and Velour (Purple). The Velour did well, produced a lot of pretty purple beans with a good flavor. The Tavera which I grew right next to the Velour, did not do very well. The plants just didn’t produce much, especially when compared to the Velour. I plan to bring back the Velour this year and try another green filet bean variety. I also might want to try the pole filet beans sold by Renee’s Garden (see below)

Below you will find a list of options available from various seed companies.

Johnny’s
1. Maxibel (7″ Green) $3.95/packet
2. Tavera (4-5″ Green) $3.45/packet
3. Velour (4-5″ first Purple filet beans) $3.45/packet
4. Concador (4 1/2 – 5″ yellow) $3.45/packet

Burpee
1. French Filet Stringless (Green) $3.95/packet
2. Triumphe De Farcy Bush (Green) $3.95/packet

Renee’s Garden
1. Rolande (Green) $2.79/packet
2. Emerite (Green Pole) $2.99/packet
3. French Gold (Yellow Pole) $3.99/packet

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds
1. Maxi (Green Bush) 150 seeds for $3.75
2. Soleil (Yellow Wax) 180 seeds for $3.95
3. Roc d’Or (Yellow Wax) 75 seeds for $3.75
4. Nickel (Green) 160 seeds for $3.95

Q&A – What Eats Bush Beans?

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:33:40 +0000

Question: What eats bush bean plants?

Answer: I know Japanese beetles like to eat bean leaves. They ate my mom’s pole bean leaves into nothing last year. If they eat the pole bean leaves, I imagine they will do the same with bush beans. Traps do not work on them as it just attracts them to the area. I have heard people have success against insects with using a garlic/cayenne pepper mixture sprayed onto the leaves. There may also be certain plants you can plant that will help control insect problems. There is a great book called “Great Garden Companions
“, that can help you know what to plant to attract beneficial insects as well as keep away pests.

As for animals, I had some deer munch on the tops of my bush bean plants. Luckily they didn’t do much damage and the plants went on producing. The rabbits were much worse. They ate the leaves of every plant as it came up. The only good solution to this problem is building a fence. Or you could also try planting garlic completely surrounding your bean plants, some people swear by this.

Click here to read all things bush bean related on the website.

Growing Beans – Blue Lake 274 Bush at 5 Weeks

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 02:40:59 +0000

Click here to read all my posts on blue lake bush beans.

The number of buds on my blue lake beans continues to grow. No actual flowers opening yet, but as you can from the above pictures, it’s close. If you are growing this type of beans, you can expect buds and flowers to show up about 4-5 weeks after you plant. Bush beans are the fastest crop (from seed to harvest) that I grow. That’s why you can keep on planting them even into the middle of the summer here in Michigan and across the Midwest.

Growing Beans – Blue Lake 274 Bush at 4 Weeks

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 02:32:15 +0000

Click here to read all my posts on blue lake bush beans.

Above is a picture of my blue lake bush beans after 4 weeks in the ground. Their growth has been good up to this point. I started to see the first buds appearing on some of the plants (click the photo on the right to enlarge). So flowers should I start seeing flowers appearing soon, and when flowers appear that means beans aren’t far behind!

I had problems earlier with something eating some of my leaves, but that seemed to have been a 1-time deal and it didn’t slow done the growth of my plants.

Q&A – Are Blue Lake Green Beans Good for Freezing?

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 02:22:53 +0000

Question: Are blue lake green beans good for freezing?

Answer: Absolutely! I have heard they are one of the best beans for freezing. I haven’t done it myself before, because I never grown enough beans where I couldn’t eat them all fresh (hopefully this year will change that!). I would recommend blanching them before freezing. Just bring a pot of water to a boil, drop the beans in and cook for 2-3 minutes. Then quickly put the beans into a bowl of ice water to shock them and stop the cooking. This will preserve a bright green color. Then for freezing, I recommend placing each bean individually, without touching another on a cookie sheet or sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Then place into the freezer making sure the cookie sheet is flat. Once the beans freeze, then place them into a zip top bag. I like doing this because it’s less likely your beans are going to all stick together, so it’s easier to pull some of the beans out of the bag if you aren’t going to use them all at once.

For more on blue lake bush beans, click here to read all my posts on them.

Growing Beans – Beuree de Roquencourt Wax Bush at 2 Weeks

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:03:01 +0000

Click here to read all my posts regarding this variety of bush bean.

Two weeks into growing my Beuree de Roquencourt Wax Bush beans (thank goodness for copy & paste) they are looking good. The package says to thin the plants out to 6-10 inches. The other bush beans I am growing said to thin to around 4 inches. I don’t know if these beans need more space or it’s just a difference in the opinion of the company who packaged the seeds. I just eye balled the plants and looked for any that I thought were too close together and pulled them.

Growing Beans – Royal Burgundy Bush at 2 Weeks

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:12:59 +0000

Click here to read all my posts on Royal Burgundy Bush Beans.

It’s been two weeks since my royal burgundy bush beans were planted and they are looking good so far. I noticed that the stems of the plants have a purple hue to them, which helps me tell them apart at this point from the green and wax beans planted nearby. Once the plants got 4 leaves it was time to thin them out to about 4 inches per plant. It’s important each plant has enough room to grow, so that it can reach it’s full potential.

Growing Beans – Blue Lake 274 Bush at 2 Weeks

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:27:17 +0000

It took about 5-6 days for my blue lake bush beans to make their appearance out of the ground. At the 2 week point they were leaves a plenty. Once the plants have 4 leaves on them, it is time to thin them out. Thin to 1 plant every 4 inches, so that each plant has enough room to grow. I found a few holes in some of the leaves, probably some kind of insect but there wasn’t any real damage to be concerned about, so I will just keep a close eye on the plants for now.

Click here to read all my posts on blue lake bush beans.