French bean "Argus", green, 30 seeds, Baltic Agro

• Species: Phaseolus vulgaris — dwarf French bean
• Variety: "Argus" — green, stringless
• Producer: Baltic Agro
• Packet: 30 seeds
• Height: 45 cm, no support needed
• Pod: 14–15 cm, dark green, straight, stringless
• Harvest: 55–65 days after emergence, July–September
• Sowing: direct, late May to June, 3–4 cm deep
• Spacing: 20 × 30 cm
• Soil: warmed to at least +12 °C — beans are frost-tender
• Position: sunny and sheltered
• Uses: boiling, freezing, pickling

When to sow. Beans are the most cold-sensitive vegetable in the garden: at +10 °C the seed simply rots, and a light frost kills seedlings overnight. Wait for late May or early June — a later sowing catches an early one up quickly.

Preparation. Soaking is unnecessary and actually harmful: a swollen seed splits in cold soil. Sow into a moist drill and do not water again until the seedlings appear.

Soil. Light, warm and neutral. Beans fix their own nitrogen, so nitrogen feeds are ruled out entirely — otherwise you get a lush bush and no pods. Give ash or a potassium feed before sowing.

Watering. Water sparingly until flowering. During flowering and pod fill do the opposite: the soil must stay evenly moist or the flowers drop and the pods stay short. Water at the root and keep the leaves dry.

Picking. Pick every 3–4 days, once the pod has its full length but the seeds inside cannot yet be felt. Use both hands: hold the stem with one and snap the pod with the other, or you will tear off a whole branch. Regular picking extends the crop by a month.

Watch out for. A cold wet June (seed rots — resow), aphids on the shoot tips and anthracnose in a rainy summer: brown spots on the pods. Do not walk among the plants when they are wet — the disease travels on clothes and hands.