Plant · P-230

Common Bean

Phaseolus vulgaris

Common Bean is a warm-season legume grown for immature pods eaten as snap beans and for the dry shelled seed, with hundreds of cultivars split into climbing pole types and compact bush types - the main choice a grower makes, since pole beans want a trellis and bush beans suit an open bed with one concentrated harvest. It fixes nitrogen through root nodules, enriching the soil for whatever follows it once the residue is left to decay. It stops setting pods in the hottest weeks of summer, so it is grown as two crops with a gap in July rather than one continuous season - a spring planting after last frost and a fall planting that carries to first frost. Raw or undercooked seed is toxic to people and livestock alike and must always be cooked before eating or feeding out, though the green vines and post-threshing straw make safe, well-accepted livestock forage.