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How We Plant Lima Beans
 We purchase bush lima beans that have not been treated with an inoculant, a substance that stimulates chemical action that enables the beans to make use of the nitrogen in the soil. We add the inoculant ourselves just before we plant them. If this is not done, the beans will not yield well. Bush lima beans are planted as seeds in the outdoor garden after all danger of frost has ended. They love hot weather and like warm soil, so don’t plant them too early. Sometimes lima beans look terrible at first, and you might tend to think that you lost them. But give them a week or two and they can perk-up and look great a month later.
Limas are a long season crop and will normally require about 2 1/2 months of warm weather to produce. They are not recommended for smaller gardens or novice gardeners, as they can be difficult to grow.
First cut a 12” slit in the plastic and dig a shallow 1” trench. Pour in a small amount of the inoculant (fertilizer) and place beans, with eyes down, into trench about 2” apart. Cover with soil and water lightly.
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We usually plant several rows of Early Thorogreen lima beans around the second week of May. One year we had excessive rains and were going to replant the rows as nothing came up – we thought everything had rotted out. We decided to wait one more week and, sure enough, the young seedlings poked their heads thru the ground and started to grow. The entire crop of lima beans did okay but got off to a slow start that year.
One of the bad things about lima beans is that they mature when the mosquitoes are most prevalent. Robin has to apply some mosquito repellent when she harvests the beans as the mosquitoes have a field day with her. Her husband, Bill, watches from the safety of the sunroom, shouting encouragement to his wife.
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