Royalty Purple Bush Beans
Phaseolus vulgaris

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
80 seeds per packet

days to maturity: 50 days
plant spacing: 4 per square foot
sunlight requirements: 8-14 hours
look out for: mildew from overcrowding
harvest notes: harvest beans every other day for about 10 days then pull the plants
annual

Easy to pick - purple pods are easily visible against the green foliage. Plants have short runners and need a bit more space because of that, but they don’t need to be trellised. 5 inch pods are slightly curved and will turn green after 2 minutes of cooking. Very meaty and flavorful, great for vegetable soup and a big favorite of kids because of the fun color and how easy they are to harvest.

Bush beans are super duper extra fabulously easy to grow in home gardens so long as you have 8 hours or more of direct sun in your garden. Bean seeds are large so kids can handle and plant them very easily, and they germinate in under 72 hours so you get instant gratification if they want to check their new plants every day for growth. Direct seed 8 plants per square foot and thin them to 4 once they’ve germinated. One key to bean growing is to harvest very regularly once fruiting starts (like every other day) and then once you run out of beans on your plant pull them and add them to your compost pile. Many gardeners don’t realize that beans are meant to fruit heavily for a small window of time and then they’re done. Bonus: the plants contain nitrogen so they make a good ingredient for your compost pile.