Beans are one of the vegetables that are highly stressed during the summer heat. They like warmth and they are very frost sensitive, but when temperatures are too high, the beans will react with the lack of pods.

This year has been very warm and very dry in Croatia, and in most of the gardens, bean crops have failed completely. Beans that have managed to grow pods are very expensive and rare, and most of them come from the mountainous region of Croatia, where the temperatures are always much lower. 

There’s not much we can do during the heatwaves. The solution would be to lower the temperature under 29°C(85°F) for the plants to grow pods, but let’s face it, not many of us have that option in our gardens. So what else can we do to help the beans? Could we try not watering them?

This may sound a bit foolish, but here’s why I’ve stopped watering my plants during the heat. When the beans get enough water during the heatwave, they keep on producing flowers, which continuously fall off. The plant, which is already stressed from the heat, is using its energy on flowers that will never grow into pods. This will result in the plant acting like it’s at the end of its production period, and it will slowly die off.

What happens when we don’t water them? The beans realize that the stress level due to the heat and lack of water is too big, and they stop producing flowers. They focus on keeping themselves alive during the heat period, and it will look like they are hibernating. Once the temperature drops under 30°C, and we start watering the beans(or the rain does it for us), the beans will explode in flowers and they will start forming pods like it was still June, and not the end of the summer. 

This way we can save our bean production and get at least one part of the amount that we’d get in normal years. 

I’ve started watering my plants 2 weeks ago when the heat finally came to an end, and with a couple of showers and colder periods, the plants are now producing pods like mad. This week I’ve had two harvests, each before the rain, and each time I got more beans than during the whole summer and heat. The plants might look a bit worn down and yellow, but the pods are completely healthy and growing like crazy. 

The same principle can be applied to get a second(or third) bean harvest at the end of the gardening season. I already wrote about leaving the summer beans, that stopped producing pods, intact until the fall.  

Of course, if the season is normal, we won’t stress our plants with the lack of water during the short waterless periods. But, if the temperatures are above 30°C denying them water will actually help them survive, and in the end, both us and the beans could eventually benefit from it.