Yard Long Beans

The purple blooms of the Gita Bean give birth to long slender beans in the hot summer.

The Gita bean can grow to to be a yard long but we try to pick them in a young tender stage of less than 18 inches long.

During the hot summer months we are looking for crops that will take the heat of our Georgia summers and keep producing. The yard long beans will definitely fit that profile. They actually are more like a pea when they mature and the leaf is more pea like. We always pick them in the young stage before the pea inside starts to form. At this young stage we treat them like green snap beans and snap or cut them into 2 ” pieces and prepare them like you would any green beans. They have a good flavor and are easy to prepare and cook.

We grow a variety of yard long beans called Gita beans. The seeds are available from Johnny’s Seed Company. We don’t plant them until late May or early June because they need the heat to grow well. We are looking for them to produce in August and September when other vegetables in our Georgia garden are suffering from the heat. Gita bean is a running bean and need a strong trellis to grow on. They will climb up on a trellis very well without much help after they find the trellis. I give them a little help to start winding around the trellis net I provide for them and then then they are on their own. The seed can be planted directly into the garden once temperatures are at least 80 degrees. They need very little fertilizer and a little water during dry times. I have not experienced any major insects or disease  problems with Gita beans. The hardest thing to do is to keep up with the abundant beans they produce.