No Pole Bean Flowers

9 years ago

I am a long time gardener; mostly in easy California, but for the last nine years in humid and hot central North Carolina (zone 7b). I initially amended our 1000 sq ft Carolina clay soil with ~6-7 cu yds of cow manure/bedding (a third of a dump truck load). It is still working for tilth. I have been casual about subsequent fertilizer, using mainly 10/10/10 chemicals and some miracal gro etc rather than manure. After my garden was in this year, I finally got around to getting some more quite well composted cow manure, and threw some of it around my plants. Generally, the plants have grown well.

I usually grow bush and pole beans. The bush beans produce first and when they slow down, the pole beans are usually getting ready to produce. However, this year, while the bush beans grew and produced very well, the pole beans have grown well too (and not super lush either), but they have still not produced any flowers. I usually plant beans and tomatoes around the 10th of April, but had to wait until perhaps May 10th due to extra wet conditions. It is now almost always in the 90s, although things may cool a bit for the next week. I read here somewhere that beans don't flower when too hot, but I have never had this problem before. It is hard to imagine that Carolinians are not expected to grow beans in summer. What do you actually think happened here?

Comments (7)

glib
9 years ago
It is too hot and next week they will bloom. You are right that they don't do it all the time, but they do it.
prairiemoon2 z6b MA
9 years ago
I was surprised to see this thread. I thought I was the only one having this problem. Interestingly, I also had to start my pole beans late. Then I had trouble with something biting off the lead of all the vines. Never had a season of trouble with growing string beans. The bush beans went in late too, at the same time as the pole beans and they are just starting to produce. Very glad I decided to grow both this year, or I'd have not string beans.

I'm debating ripping out the pole beans and starting Fall peas.
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catherinet
9 years ago
What variety of pole beans are you growing?

I'm in central Indiana and starting to get alot of beans from the Kentucky Blue pole beans (planted around May 20.)

However, I don't have a single blossom on the Blue Lake pole beans yet........But if you're growing the variety you always have, and it's been the usual length of time since you planted them, I would say it's the heat.

I had hardly any beans grow the 2 previous extremely hot summers we had. Seems like 90 and above, they just don't do anything.
prairiemoon2 z6b MA
9 years ago
'Golden Gate' yellow and Trionfo Violetto purple. Golden Gate is new to me this year. Now that we are talking about it, I have planted my pole bean seeds at least 3 weeks earlier in previous seasons and they started producing sooner in the cooler weather then when it got really hot the production slowed down considerably. I had forgotten that. So that 3 weeks probably made a big difference.
chas045
Original Author
9 years ago
I hope you're right glib. I am growing Blue Lake, both bush and pole. catherinet: I thought I had grown blue lakes before, but the BL bush beans were absolutely stringless, even when they got a little large, and I had never had beans completely without strings before, so perhaps I haven't grown them before.
catherinet
9 years ago
I think Blue Lake are considered a later variety. I always plant them, knowing they will produce much later. But like has been said......high temps can pretty much mess up any pole bean, in my experience.
nancyjane_gardener
9 years ago
Heat and too much nitrogen?????? I've heard they don't like a bunch of N. Would have thought otherwise! Nancy