Try one last crop: beans.
Plant a few beans and see what happens. photo: PBH
Gardening is always a gamble. This late in the year, you may or may not have time to get in another crop or two. One gamble I’m willing to make it is beans.
A few cents worth of bean seed might or might not have time to produce a crop. You may have some seed left over. Take a chance on the seed in the clearance rack. Or just grab a hand full of dried pinto beans from the kitchen cabinet.
Mascotte French Filet Bean plants are small enough for hanging baskets.
I’m gambling that if I water and weed my little bean patch, I’ll end up with a bonus crop of fresh green beans. If an early freeze hits the area, that’s OK too. Just turn those bean plants into the soil.
Either way, you get fresh green beans or you get improved soil ready and waiting for spring planting.
Beans are nitrogen-fixing plants. They draw nitrogen from the air and make it available to the soil. By adding nitrogen to the soil, the N of NPK in fertilizer, you are enriching the soil for the next crop you plant.
Purple Hyacinth Bean Flowering Vine looks like a pole snap beans with scarlet flowers.
Some plants that fix nitrogen into the soil are legumes, like peanuts, clover, beans, alfalfa. Beans are fasting growing legumes. It will cost you little or nothing to poke a few seed in the ground.
