green beans look like air was sucked out of pods

I've been watering every other day or so but they taste dry and starchy and they look like someone vacuumed out all the air from the pods. You can see the outline of the beans inside. What am I doing wrong and what's the right way to grow them? It's been very hot here lately in the 100s. Thanks.

If you are growing snap beans, They don't take to heat well. Here I have to grow them early (spring) and late (fall). Forget summer.

Looks like air is sucked out of the pods? You can see the outline of the beans?

Could it be you are picking them too late and they are simply gone by, moving into "seed mode"? Usually you pick beans before the seeds start bulging.

But yes, I sure do understand the heat causing them to not grow so well. Some years I can mulch with leaves and it seems to help with the growth as well as the flavor as long as we have ample water.

What kind of bean did you grow this year, fizzbo?

F-dill...when are you gonna sow your Fall beans? (I'm thinking of sowing a couple rows today.)

Shoe.

It's the Japanese beetles that are trying to keep me from putting up beans this year. sigh. We mulch w/ straw, and this seems to help w/ the heat we're having. Which isn't anything compared to the rest of the country.

Not until this drought breaks, Shoe. If we get some rain and cooler temps, during the month of August.

Any point in the rest of us trying to squeeze in a fall crop? My McCaslan are supposed to be 61 days... guess it will depend on fall temps.

I'm going to put in fall peas and short-season lettuce (Simpson's Curled) this weekend.

F-dill...we've had good rain recently (the scary kind, lightning bolts/thunder). Hope your drought breaks soon.

Zeppy, aren't those pole beans? That's a great early maturity date for pole beans, I'll have to try some next year! I'd give a Fall crop of them a try if I was you...our first heavy frost was extremely late last year, perhaps it'll be the same this year the way the weather is changing. (I haven't heard any recent predictions though.)

As for me, today, it was just too unbearably hot to sow my beans. After tying up a few tomatoes and tilling about 150 row ft I had to head for the shade. Supposed to be a cold snap first of the week though (predicted highs of only 85!) so perhaps I'll give it another try then.

:>)

Ya gotta watch out for them cold snaps...wouldn't want you catching a cold out there!!!

*grinnin' here. :>)

brrrr.....

Kurt - what kind of peas are you putting in?

Yep, cold snap is predicted here too. Low Monday is predicted as a fridged 95. Gotta break out my old denim jacket. Worth it if we can get a little rain. Watermelons are holding up well, but cataloupes, peas and butterbeans are taking the count. Even the okra, which I do irrigate is subpar. And of course I can't plant anything in dry soil so hot it will blister your hand.

Zeppy I spent 28 years in the New River Valley, further south but higher elevation than the Shenandoah. Never tried fall pole beans, but both bush and half runners did well planted around the first of August.

Can you believe we are already talking fall crops? How can it possibly be coming up to AUgust so fast???

It can't be. Obviously there was a glitch in time or something, because I know for a fact that yesterday it was May.

Amen!

I'm going to try a fall crop of zucchini and broccoli, but broccoli absolutely does not like heat, so I don't know. I've wasted a couple seed packets trying to grow broccoli, and I haven't succeeded so far.

The two plants that were eaten almost down to nubs are still standing and have a leaf or two still on them. And I went out there today and didn't see any flea beetles. Maybe they couldn't take the "cold" weather. :-) (Temps only up to 86 today.)

So maybe it's possible they could survive.

Sequee, I'm giving Laxton's Progress #9 a shot. They are said to mature in 60 days, so if I get them in this weekend or next, I should be able to start harvesting near the end of September. They're frost-hardy, or so it is claimed, so if our first frost really does happen on 15 September, I should still have peas to harvest on 16 September.

Good luck! I think I will put out more Tom Thumbs, in containers, then I can always bring them in if it turms cool. I've read where people have had great success in growing these indoors year 'round. They are a wonderful pea, and it would be nice to be able to munch a few throughout the off season. I currently grow lettuce, culantro, parsely and pak choi on my window sills during the fall/winter season - why not a few peas!

My Oregon sugar pod peas are doing really well right now, and we have been HOT.