Yardlong bean · Dachang, Shanghai, China
When to plant yardlong beans in Dachang
Main outdoor window
17 Mar - 7 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
3 March
In Dachang, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
1 Jul - 31 Oct
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Dachang
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
10 Feb - 3 Mar
Three weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow direct
17 Mar - 7 Apr
Two weeks after your last frost.
Plant out
17 Mar - 7 Apr
Two weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
1 Jul - 31 Oct
Yardlong beans through the year
Against the frost risk in Dachang
Why these dates
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.
Killed at 0C. Growth stalls below 18C, so in cool summers the plant climbs without ever flowering usefully.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Yardlong beans are timed from 3 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 2 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Dachang.
The median frost-free season here is 286 days, against 60 to 80 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Dachang
Other vegetables to time
Growing yardlong beans in Dachang
When should I plant yardlong beans in Dachang?
Aim for 17 Mar - 7 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 28 Mar - 18 Apr - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will yardlong beans be ready to harvest in Dachang?
Expect to start picking around 1 Jul - 31 Oct, based on 60 to 80 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will yardlong beans tolerate?
Killed at 0C. Growth stalls below 18C, so in cool summers the plant climbs without ever flowering usefully.