Bush Beans in Our Square Foot Garden

The sun’s warmth and the excited voices of children signal that spring is here and summer is near. There’s a new surge of energy as the neighborhood emerges and the last traces of winter fade away. No longer are we met with a cold silence upon walking outside. Instead we are met with the singing of birds, bursts of color from spring flowers, and sounds of people busy with outdoor projects and chores.

Our own projects have been keeping us busy as well. After placing our raised bed, we were so eager to get something planted in it! However, we had to wait just a little longer before we could start our beans. The wait is now over! Although it is an early planting, we decided to plant some bush beans in our square foot garden, but just the first 1/3 of the bed for now. The kids were so excited to place each seed in the holes and get their hands dirty!

I realized that we could plant more per square inch than we had last year. According to various sources, we can plant 9 bush beans per square foot. We’re going ahead and trying that out – maybe this year we’ll end up with enough beans to can a few quarts!

You may be wondering why we only planted beans in 1/3 of our raised bed. Don’t worry, we’re going to be filling the whole bed with bush beans. We’re trying out something called succession planting. In two weeks we’ll plant more beans in the 2nd third of the bed, and in 4 weeks we’ll do the same in the last third. I’m hoping this will allow us to have a continuous flow of green beans throughout the summer. I’ve got to say, green beans are the vegetable of choice in our home!

All we did was…

• Divide our bed into 12 squares each roughly 12 inches squared.
• Then we made 9 holes in 4 squares (1/3rd of our bed) that were about 1/2 inch deep.
• Finally we place two seeds in each hole and covered it back up!

We placed two bush green bean seeds per hole just in case one doesn’t germinate. If we end up with two plants, we may end up removing one of them but we’ll see….

The beans were a success. We went on to plant two more plantings before the summer was over!

Addendum: The homesteading journey is a slow but steady one for us. There have been many hurdles for us to overcome, as well as many joys to delight in. Over the years, God has been teaching us the value of patience and of trust in Him.

If you feel that God is leading you to those same lessons, then I invite you to check out Fuel Your Faith Foundation. It’s a self-guided course that will lead you through the same steps that we have had to take in this journey. It’s a journey of Faith, of self-discovery, and walking in purpose. It is my hope that this course helps make learning those lessons a little easier.