How to Grow Green Beans with Kids
Welcome! Your little gardener planted a bean seed!
Hi, I’m Tiffany from Golden Hour Garden Co.—and I’m so excited your child planted with me today. Below you’ll find everything you need to care for their new bean plant, plus a few fun ideas to keep the gardening joy going.
Quick Care Guide for Your New Bean Plant
Sunlight: Needs at least 6 hours of sunlight per day
Water: Keep soil moist but not soggy
When it sprouts: You'll see baby leaves in 5-10 days!
Next steps: Transplant to a bigger pot or garden bed once it’s 3-4 inches tall
Harvest: Your green beans are ready to pick when the pods are about 3-4 inches long.
Download: My Bean Journal (Printable PDF)
Track your bean’s growth, draw pictures, check off your watering, and more!
Growing More Beans in Your Vegetable Garden
The Provider bush bean is a bean variety from the Fabaceae family, also known as the legume, pea, or bean family. It's a medium plant that thrives in the warm season and needs 50 days to mature. It prefers the soil to be kept moist (with good drainage) and thrives in sandy soil rich with organic matter. For each seed planted and sprouted, you can expect to get a half-pound of fruit per plant throughout the season. Beans are ready to harvest when the pods are about 3-4 inches long.
Grow Green Beans in 6 Steps
Sunlight: Pick a spot in your garden that gets full sun (6+ hours/day)
Planting: Bean seeds grow well when they are planted directly in your garden outside
Spacing: Plant seeds 1" deep and 4-6” apart to avoid crowding
Watering: Keep soil moist, not soggy
Growing: Watch for sprouts in 5-10 days
Harvesting: Pick green beans when the pods are about 3-4 inches long.
Where to Grow Bush Beans
I love to plant bush beans around the edge of a raised bed and also in any blank spaces that need to be filled throughout the warm growing season. If you plant them along the edge of your raised bed, they will actually spill over the edge creating a beautiful effect while freeing up space inside the bed for other plants to grow.
You can grow bush beans in a container if you don’t have a raised bed. Choose a pot that's at least 18 inches wide and 12 inches deep to fit several plants. Mix compost into your potting soil for extra nutrients.
Place the container in a sunny spot that gets at least 6–8 hours of direct sunlight daily. More light means better growth and more beans.
When to Grow Bush Beans
Bush beans grow best during the warm growing season when average high temperatures range from 65°F to 85°F. Here in the DMV, you’re safe to plant bush beans outside after our last frost date has passed, usually in mid- to late April. They will continue to grow happily all summer long until our first frost date comes around late October or early November.
Once you’ve determined the timing is right for growing bush beans, you’re ready to plant!
Hi, I’m your garden coach!
I grew up around incredible gardeners, but the idea of raised beds didn’t click for me until life got so busy and I was so buried in weeds that I wasn’t sure how gardening would continue to fit in.
Raised beds led to intensive planting. Intensive planting led to native pollinator beds, and before long I had adopted an entirely new way of gardening that was somehow less work, less friction, more production, and more success.
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