As soon as the beans and pea pods swell and fill up with seeds, they are ready to be harvested. Harvest beans and peas on a regular basis to encourage continual growth. Regular harvesting is the best way to prolong your bean harvest. We suggest picking your beans and peas every other day.
If you let the peas and beans get too old on the vine, the plant will slow down growth and production as they send a signal to the plant to stop growing as they will have finished their reproductive cycle. When beans and peas get too big, they generally aren’t as tasty or as tender, so pick them regularly for a great harvest.
Sometimes beans and peas can be hard to spot among the foliage. We usually go through our bean patch a couple times to catch any ripe pods that we missed. We also like growing things like yellow or purple beans, and even a purple snow pea variety.
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