Time to plant my beans!

Last frost here is April 15th. But it has been warmer than average, and everything wild is growing bonkers! These are beefy resilient grex, that have been said to do okay 2 weeks before last frost. 4 days before last frost? That'll work! These happen to be pole beans, (or half runners maybe?) so they are planted really close together. Bush beans are planted in rows, about 4 inches apart.



This bed was mulched with leaves over the winter. You can see I am holding back the leaves on one side of the row with an old edging so they don't fall into my work area. I rough out a shallow trench in the bed with my 3 pronged weeder. I place the seeds in the trench. I poke the down with my fingers till they are 1 to 2 inches deep. I tamp down the soil over the buried seeds.

Then I scatter 2 to 3 inches of leaves on top. These happen to be from an oak. River oak? I refer to the small leaf below. Mulching all done. The beans will pop up through the leaves and no weeding needs to be done. None at all. Leaves of this size and shape work great! I do need to get that trellis built next week…



The larger lobbed oak leaves do not work for this purpose. The beans will sprout, but are trapped under the “interlocking” lobed leaves. Maybe chopped (mown over) leaves could work?

That's my trick. Do you have one?

Our soil is still too cold for beans here, but every day, I'm hopeful! I'm letting the sun at the soil as much as I can. Most beans here don't seem to mind our frost much if they are established, but I think it's the cold and our damp soil that won't let them germinate so they rot.

Potatoes and peas are going inb the ground this week.  Hopefully chard next week.

I like your trick.  It looks like a snug bed.

Last spring I found that I had overdone the over winter mulch, and when I removed it to start planting the soil was still frozen - I think it was about this date, or very close, and outside of the mulched beds the ground had thawed at least two weeks earlier. Ideally I would want some sort of mulch bin/crib/storage right next to the vegetable beds, where I could collect mulch as it was available, and also temporarily dump mulch from the beds during warm/sunny periods early in spring. The snow cover and winter temperatures vary too much here to feasibly mulch the beds thickly enough to not freeze.

Anyway, this year the (mostly leaf) mulch was not that thick, and I have taken most of it off and sowed mixed fava beans a couple of days ago. Yesterday I also planted some potatoes, and as an experiment I put two fava beans near each potato. It will be interesting to see how this works. Although these are supposed to be early potatoes, I think the favas will be harvestable when the potatoes are ready, or maybe a bit earlier. I much prefer green favas to dried, so although I need to have an area planted with favas that can be left until the seed is mature and dry, this only needs to be big enough to provide seed for next year and a little backup. And to ensure a bit of genetic variation is maintained.

Pole beans I may sow in a week or two, but I'm wary of covering the seeded beds with mulch like the OP does - I feel this would invite slugs and other pests at just the most critical time here. A little mulch when they are up and vining, however, has worked well before.

As a side note (not beans), I also sowed some peas along with oats as an experiment. Unlike the favas and potatoes, I won't necessarily eat either, the hope is they will contribute to soil health both as a break in the rotation and by adding organic material, and if enough grows it will make nice snacks for the hens.