If you are replanting in the same spot (especially several times) I would suspect disease. But you say it is a new garden. Might want to carefully dig one up--while it is dying--and inspect the roots (while they still exist) for signs of nematodes or some other pathogen.

"Deformed leaves" makes me wonder about the possibility of herbicide over spray.

This post was edited by Fascist_Nation on Sat, May 31, 14 at 16:17

If the soil they're planted in is retaining a lot of water (clayish soil), they could be over watered. I find beans hardly ever need to be watered after about 2 weeks after germination if I planted them in my clay soil.

Sorry that it took me so long to respond.

I did pull up some plants and didn't see any insects etc.

The garden is in virgin desert soil that had lots of jumping chollas growing on it until we pulled them up years ago.
Unless someone dumped chemicals there over 25 years ago, there isn't much of a possibility of herbicide over spray.
I did however used to have horses loose on the land where the garden is now.

I did cut back on the watering after reading what iAndy wrote. The crowder pea plants are looking better but not really thriving.
My soil is not very good there so hopefully after properly amending the soil these problems will straighten out. I have never had problems growing beans before.