Vegetable · Fabaceae
When to plant yardlong beans
A cowpea rather than a true bean, which is why it crops in heat that stops runner beans setting pods entirely.
Start seed indoors
3 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Plant out
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Sow direct
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make yardlong beans plantable anywhere.
- Start seed indoors 3 weeks before the last frost.
- Plant out 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Sow direct 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Expect 60–80 days to maturity, counted from sowing.
- Sow again every 14 days for a continuous supply.
Getting the timing right
Sow two weeks after the last frost onto warm soil, up a tall support. Pick at about 40cm, before the seeds swell, and pick every second day.
Frost tolerance
Killed at 0C. Growth stalls below 18C, so in cool summers the plant climbs without ever flowering usefully.
Classified as tender, with damage expected below 0°C (32°F)32°F (0°C).