How Do I Grow Speckled Butter Beans?

Dig up the vegetable garden area where you will plant the beans. Use your shovel to turn the soil over to a depth of 1 foot. Pick out any rocks or other debris.

Amend the soil by placing a 2-inch layer of organic compost over the worked soil. Mix the compost into the soft dirt. Use your rake to even out the mixed soil.

Create three garden rows a minimum of 6 feet long. Do this by placing the point of your how at one end and pulling it in a straight line, about 3 inches deep. Make another line about 6 to 8 inches away, parallel to the first. The hoe lines will be used as moats later on.

Draw another line that is about 8 inches away from the last one, allowing the soil to fall towards the inside of the line made before. You now have three moat lines and two peaked center soil rows. Create one more row with your hoe, as before. This makes three garden rows and four moat rows.

Push a speckled butter bean into the top of the soft, peaked garden row about an inch deep. Estimate 8 to 10 inches along the same garden row and push in another bean. Continue until all the rows have planted beans. Push soil over the top of all the planted speckled butter beans.

Push 16-inch wooden stakes into the garden row at each end. Place another one in the middle of the row. Tie two or three taut lines of string between the stakes, one at 6 inches from the ground and the second an inch from the top of the stakes. This gives the bean vines something to which they can attach themselves as they grow, and provides them with support.

Spray the garden rows with a hose sprayer, gently. Do this at least once a day. If the climate is dry and hot, you may need to spray more often. The soil must be kept moist for the beans to germinate.

Water, without the sprayer, into the moats after the beans have germinated. This should be in about a week. Water about once a day, unless the weather persists and is hot and dry. If that is the case, water once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Harvest the speckled butter beans when the bean pods are plump. Shell the pods. The beans may be dried, cooked fresh or frozen.