Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
lc4al_gw

Pretty vines but no blooms or beans

lc4al
13 years ago

My Blue Lake pole beans have nice vines with no signs of disease or insect damage but I don't have the first bloom or bean. I used Miracle Grow for tomatoes on the plants to get them going and then used 13-13-13 fertilizer on them twice since. Can anyone tell me what might be the problem and what (if anything) I can do? Thanks!

Comments (3)

  • linda_schreiber
    13 years ago

    Sounds a like *way* too much fertilizer, *especially nitrogen*. Stop fertilizing today.

    Legumes produce better with little or no nitrogen input. They *fix* nitrogen themselves. And if there is a lot in the soil, it encourages them to put out lots of pretty vines, but not much else.....

    Nitrogen will leach out more than the others. If your soil is *really* very well draining (like sandy or sandy loam soil), and you have not gotten really heavy rain over the last week or so, then try watering very heavily one time. Set a sprinkler and let it run for a few hours, like a heavy rain would do. You don't want to let things stay at all soggy. Depending, you may want to do this again in a week, if it hasn't rained.

    If you have richer soil, or it has rained heavily recently, then.... you just have to wait. The fix above will *hurt* more than help.

    Your *best* bet may be finding another spot and replanting fresh seeds. Without fertilizing. If I were you, I would do this regardless. If the others start producing, great. If not, then you will get some yield out of the unfertilized new plantings.

  • lc4al
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Thanks Linda. I'm afraid my "spot" is permanent. Hubby built a trellis with vinyl coated wire stretched on 4x4 posts that is about 8ft tall and 16ft wide. If I replant I'll have to pull out the existing vines. What kind of fertilizer should be used for pole beans? In my ignorance I thought 13-13-13 was a good all purpose fertilizer for everything here in AL :)

    Lynn

  • linda_schreiber
    13 years ago

    You're in AL. Really long growing season! Great! That will help a lot. Just let them be, other than watering when necessary. Odds are, they will eventually produce, and probably pretty well. You have time. Just be patient.

    Up north, in this situation, they would finally have started to flower when the first heavy frost hit....

    Unless your soil is really lousy, beans do better without much in the way of 'fertilizer' at all. Best bet is to mix in some good compost when planting the seeds, and then don't fertilize further. If using commercial fertilizers, choose one with a *low* first number (That's the nitrogen.), and use that only when planting and in early growth. Then stop, and let them be.

    In AL, you may eventually get decent yield. But when you're fertilizing the other stuff, skip over the beans.....

Sponsored
Hoppy Design & Build
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars9 Reviews
Northern VA Award-Winning Deck ,Patio, & Landscape Design Build Firm