My plants all love mulch. I use plastic or grass clippings.

Could your plants be getting overwatered? How often do you water, what does the ground feel like?

I think, from your description, that they lack nitrogen. Shade can cause pale color but 6-8 hours sun should be fine.
Also, too much water can cause pale color, because nitrogen being easily water soluable may go down beyond the reach of the roots.Too much rain also can make the bad situation worse. I woud say, go ahead and feed them, lightly, more regularly.Mulching is always good, but not with wood chips or plastic. I use fall leave, straw, pine straw and hay. Mulch serves more than one purpose: can keep moisture longer, can keep soil cooler, preven weeds growth.
Another point is: what did you fill the raise bed with? how deep? and what is underneath?

If there is a reason not to use plastic, or (seedless) grass clippings which would add nitrogen, I'd like to know what it is.

Have you figured out what is wrong with your beans? I'm having the same problem with mine. They came up, grew good. The plants are huge and have lots of blossoms but the leaves have all turned light green or yellow. I know they aren't getting over watered - we live in Fl and it's been dry so I water them once or twice a week. I applied some black cow and watered it in. Took a soil sample and the nitrogen was very low and everything else was med. Could it be the nitrogen since the plants are so big? What's the best thing to add for nitrogen?

Something very similiar happened to my pole beans(Emerite & Fortex)so I am very curious to see if anybody knows what the problem is. My beans grew very quickly up a 6 foot trellis, filled in nicely and had tons of blossoms and I was starting to get beans. Then the growth slowed, the blossoms dropped, the leaves turned yellow and eventually started dropping, and of course the bean production dropped off to almost nothing. The weather was dry, daytime temps low to mid 90s, night time temps in the 60s. I planted the beans in a row that had other plants planted in half of the row about a month earlier, but the drip system was watering the whole row. I didn't re-fertilize the section I planted the beans in so I wonder if most of the nitrogen was watered out. I added some nitrogen and there was some new growth, but it was late enough in the season I didn't see a huge improvement. I didn't think beans need much nitrogen, so it seems strange that a lack of nitrogren would have such a devastating effect. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Brett

I wonder if it's bean mosaic disease/virus?

Just curious if anyone has any other suggestions?

Thanks.

brett

If it wasn't a bean virus, I would have mulched heavily, sprayed with everything but nitrogen, and kept it properly watered, just enough to revive it from droop, not so much that it drowned.

If it was a bean virus, I'd rip the plants out and burn every last bit of them, till the soil, and not plant beans there for a year or two. I'd also look for any anti-viral treatment to spray on all the remaining plants in case they acted as carriers, and would look for virus resistant beans to plant in future.

my green beans are pale, and my tomatoes have stopped growing... so I just finished putting Mirical Grow plant food on my entire garden. I started with 50/50 topsoil mushroom compost... we'll see if it helps... It rains constantly in Ga.