I'm in the Western NC mountains and my beans are lucky to get 4-6 hours of direct sun. They do great however. If you haven't had beans in that spot previously, did you remember to innoculate them? That really makes a difference in performance.

I did not inoculate them. I did mix a good bit of composted manure into the soil and have been fertilizing, but with a low nitrogen organic fert.(2.5.1)

I will try giving them a shot of high nitrogen fertilizer and see if that helps. I assume that it wouldnt help to add inoculant now.

I was in Highland/Franklin NC at the beginning of June - what a beautiful area of the country to live in!

I'm in the Sam's Gap/Madison County area. Yes...it is a piece of Paradise. Do you have room to plant another row of quick-growing bush beans that have been innoculated? You still have time to get a nice "mess of beans". An old- timer told me that our mountains are low in phosphate, so I use super phosphate generously on everything. This past spring my 30-yr. old lilacs bloomed for the first time. Just thought I'd pass that along.

I'm new to growing beans, but I'm surprised that in Z4 wisconsin you already have beans that are 4 feet tall and producing. That sounds like success to me! My runner beans just got above knee height (I lost the ones I planted on our frost free date, May 11th, to rabbits and had to replant June 1).

Ive read on here some more experienced gardeners who recommend against using N fert on beans, but hopefully one of them will weigh in...

What are some natural sources of phosphate? Im in the mountains too, in Jackson County.

My Purple Kings pole beans seem to be doin rly good with about 5 n a half hours of direct light. They already have a ton of beans, some r ready for picking :)

I have read that adding N will get you a lot of green leaves but might hinder bean production. Maybe your beans are missing something else. Research Gardenweb and im sure you will find a lot of info!

I have been trying to read up on this. From what I understand, if the beans are inoculated, then they can grab nitrogen from the air, so additional nitrogen is un wanted and tends to make big green - no bean plants. But since mine are not inoculated, and are spindly, I was thinking that they are simply not getting the nitrogen that they need. If you all are growing them with 5 hrs of sun, that is reassuring, but it means that lack of sun is not causing my spindly plants.

I have been trying to find out if adding inoculant at this stage of the game is worth while, Since it is generally applied when the seeds are planted, I just dont know if adding it now will get the roots to kick in and grow the adaptive nodules before the life span of the plant is over.

I am about to put more in the ground, but they are also already started (inside under lights) without inoculent, and need to go in the ground this week. There is no where in town that sells the stuff, so I would have to buy it over the internet, which means waiting another week at least for it.

By the way, my sugar peas are doing great without inoculent. I did try a few sugar snaps in the same place last year,and I think some of them were pre-inoculated seed, so maybe that was enough to have it in the ground.

Mari_88 - Bone meal is the standard organic Phosphorus addition.

Any advice from the bean experts here?

I bought my innoculent at a local farm store this year. You might give that a try. I think phosphate is also mined. Blood and bone meals, fish fertilizer attract some interesting wild life in our mountains.

I had the same question a few years ago, mandolls. I had an area covered with shade until 2 PM or so. Thought I'd try beans (all pole except Taylor):

Cherokee Striped Cornfield (snap) - failed to produce
IWK (runner) - failed to produce
Taylor Horticulture (dry) - failed to produce
Penny Rile (cowpea) - produced modest crop
Carolina Red Lima - produced modest crop

I thought the cornfield beans should do ok, thinking about all the shade they get from the cornstalks, but they were a bust. In fact none of the varieties produced enough to convince me to plant beans there again, but if I did it would probably be a lima or a cowpea. And yes, I used inoculant.

fwiw

Rick