A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum one ever grown lima beans?

Hi all. Have any of you grown lima beans? I tried last year and they never came out of the ground! A glutton for punishment, I decided to try again this year. Two weeks ago I started some indoors, and they have come up and are growing leaves. So what do I do now, when will it be safe to plant outside, I live in NY state, zone 6 I think. Is there anything else I should do, will they grow on a fence, as a vine? Thanks for any information!

mrw--

I'll let someone else address transplanting your seedlings. I've never started beans indoors. Lima beans have one of the highest optimum temperatures for seed germination. Ideally, the *soil* should be about 85 degrees when you plant the seeds (down to 60 degrees is o.k., but germination time will be longer). I suspect that you may have planted your seeds too early last year.

You don't say where in NY you are, but if you check the hardiness & frost date maps on this site (up at the top), you'll see that for most of the state, the median last frost is in May. If you don't have a soil thermometer, you can guesstimate when the soil will be warm enough because lima seeds should be planted about two weeks AFTER the last frost date. And as always, it's better to be a week or two later than early.

Hope this helps!

P.S. Last frost in may area is 5/1-15 (depending on who you ask), and I don't worry if my limas aren't in the ground until 6/1-- plenty of time for them to mature!

It depends on the type you planted as to if they will grow on a fence. I plant bush type. They are more compact.