That's a great idea and it's a new one to me.

Jim

I'm going to try it-- thanks for the tip.

Hey-Never heard that one before; I will try it;

Thanks!

I have heard of doing this, but never tried it, as I always get at least 2 crops as long as I keep them picked and don't allow any to mature. I think the article I read mentioned running a lawnmower, set as high as possible, over them. Useful if you have a lot of beans.
JMO,
Tom

Hi--thanks for the tip--will try this ths year!

Many years ago, before I fell in love with pole beans, I used a similar trick on my bush beans. I'd pluck off all flowers, pods, and leaves, leaving only the stems intact. The plants would respond by re-sprouting, and bearing another crop. I'd use the first picking for snaps, and let the second go for seed.

Some pole beans respond to a similar treatment. They might get "run down" after the first picking, producing pods that are few in number, twisted, or "pollywogs". Picking off all pods & flowers, and pruning back the runners, will stimulate the plant to put out new branches & flowers.

Cutting beans back, by whatever method, shocks them out of their reproductive cycle & back to vegetative growth.

One summer, we had a very late frost, which zapped the top of my bush beans. They still had a couple good lower leaves, so I cut the frosted tops off and they did great..........so your idea is somewhat similar. Great idea!

Hi Momamamo!

Can you clarify something for me? You state to do cut down the stems after harvest. I've read that bush beans continue to produce beans as long as you keep picking them. Is this in fact true? This is my first time growing bush beans and I picked my first 20 beans today. I still have pods that aren't mature yet, so when would I try your suggested method? Thanks for your help!!

Wow, that's interesting and I will try it next year. I had very early beans, pulled them after two months and I'm not on my second planting. I will definitely try this next year. Thanks a lot for sharing this.

Hey tomakers. Using a lawnmower is an interesting idea!

zeedman - same idea exactly! And what a timesaver.

catherinet - frost - the great pruner! LOL

essicalynn - well, to answer your question, yes, they do keep producing, but the "haircut" I read about rejuvenutes the entire plant. So, new leaves, new and increased bean production. I did this to mine when they after the first full flush of beans. They produced pretty heavily and I picked most of the beans over a 3-4 day period. Then I cut the plants down. Do keep in mind that fertilizing them at this time is important.

I hope this works for you guys! Maureen

Thanks for the tip , I am going out right now and cut them back. Don

So glad for this new information.
Thank you
zinia

Glad to help! Maureen

Maureen's idea deserves another look, don't ya think?

Esssicalyn is right, when I had bush beans they produced all summer and fall, more than I could eat, as long as I kept them picked. I didn't cut them back. Seems to me that cutting them back wastes time and energy on regrowth. Won't the right fertilizer will force flowering on a grown bush as well as a cut bush?

Might be an interesting comparative experiment to cut one bush back and just keep the other picked, and weigh the difference, if any, in beans produced.

Okay. I have to ask.
Fertilizer? General 20-20-20 type?
I'd love to give this a try. Will it work with Golden Wax beans?
Newbie to veg gardening... Doh!
Thx in advance

Cutting back works with cabbage too. After you cut the cabbage off, cut an x about 1/4 inch deep in the stalk. You will get 4 new cabbages. The first time my husband tried this he recut the x because he didn't think he went deep enough. We ended up with 8 cabbages on the plant. Of course that was too many to grow to any size.

I've always done the same as happyday - just keep them picked so they produce all season! :) Never did understand the succession planting recommendations for them - or for greens, either. As long as we keep them chopped & don't let them bolt, we'll have salads all season, too! *shrug*

Something else interesting that I'd read abt green beans & am I'm wanting to try: letting them completely mature & then just pulling the entire plant out, hanging it to dry & then storing/using the beans as dried beans. Anyone done that one? & if so, how do the beans cook & taste?

Very interesting tip abt the cabbages, oilpainter! Could you please elaborate a little more abt the procedure? As in: where on the stalk you cut the X? & also, when you cut the original cabbage off, how much - if any - leaf growth do you leave on? Thanks! :)

Kanuk, here's a discussion on the negative effects of nitrogen fertilizer on beans that you'll probably find interesting:
No beans or flowers what's wrong?

Look at digdirt's comments. He's a well respected contributor in these forums.

Thanks ppod. I'll go read & learn. Much appreciated.

Read this thread that started last year. Did anybody ever try it and how did it work? Just how far did you cut the plants back?

I have been picking and had a good multiple harvest but over the past 10 days or so, I have observed a very noticeable decrease in production. The weather is extremely hot here in Louisiana but the plants are watered and there is a very lush growth, just few beans.

I figure I might take a couple rows, cut them back and side-dress with some more compost, but am unsure how far to prune them.

I want to bump this again and ask if anyone has actually cut back bush beans to get a new harvest? My dragon tongue beans went from considerable harvest to very little to almost nothing left on the vine in the space of 3 weeks or so, and I don't see very many new flowers on the vines.

Anyone who has done this: did you cut them to just a few inches above the soil? Can you boost their re-growth by dozing them with blood meal or something? Also, if I have maybe 1 month of fairly warm growing time is it long enough to get another harvest after I mow them?

If there is some other way to reboot these bush beans, I'd love to know about it. I don't have a long growing season, and very little growing space, so it wasn't very feasible to stagger lots of plantings.

Thanks for the info...

I planted two bush beans to fill vacate space about a month ago just see what happens. I've never grown beans before and I figured why not, it'll provide compost fodder. I knew it was too early to plant them in this heat, and sure enough they started blossoming--right in the middle of this 100 degree heat. The blossoms dropped, nothing set. So I just cut them back. We'll see in a month or so if it works and the blossoms reappear in better temperatures.

I just cut back a bunch of my plants. I will see what happens. There may not be enough time for this experiment here in the Pacific Northwest

The plants that I cut back are all re-sprouting and growing vigorously. I think if this had been done earlier in the season, it might have worked really well. I don't know if it is going to be faster than new plants from seeds though.

Thanks for the info; when you say you cut them back, exactly how far down did you cut them? The entire main stem down to 1 or 2 inches?

Interesting developments, a month ago my bush beans were destroyed down to the stems by grasshoppers and now the leaves have came back and the plant is setting beans. To bad freeze coming soon.

Dean

I cut them back to about 3 inches, but all of them had at least one branch division, but no leaves. I can now see flower buds. It's a race against time now.

Thank you so much for sharing this tip! I am new to the gardening world. This is my first year and i have 2 small gardens with pretty good success so far. I tried your tip on monday and was very surprised to find in only 4 days i have new leaves sprouting out! This seems to really work! And its early enough in the season for me to do this again! I have learned so much this year and i cant wait til next year when i can expand my gardens! Again thank you for the tip!

This is a great tip. My bush beans got nipped by the last frost-it's been so warm I decided to take a chance. I just left them, watered about every other day and now there is new growth. I was wondering about the viability of the bean with the new growth, but this tip answers my question! Thanks.

I may have to try this also because in my climate bush beans produce about 4 weeks. By that time the pole beans are producing and they will produce all season. It would be nice to extend the bush bean harvest tho.

Here in Tampa, bush beans last two to three weeks - basically two pickings. I plan to try this method in November/December. That is when we will have our next bean crop.

Not up on BEAN LINGO, but by bush beans I think you mean snap or green beans,string beans.
I made this comment, because my Father never cut his beans back, but he added fertilizer to butter beans when they started to loses they leaves after a heavy picking & they would start a new.
We are in zone 8 & beans bare for 100-140 days, then look poorly. No raised beds & only rain for water.

I have pruned green beans after reading about the practice in Organic Gardening years ago. Usually bush beans keep producing for many pickings. Many! But some years there is more pestilence than others and the plants begin to suffer. Bean beetles, rust or just plants that get too leggy -- all are reasons to consider cutting back the plants. Why not replant? Cutting back takes advantage of the established root system and the plants will regrow faster than new plants will reach production maturity. And my garden is organic so I don't use chemical-based fertilizers. I sprinkle corn gluten on the newly bared ground to prevent weed germination, or mulch with compost and give the reduced bean plants a good watering with a cocktail of fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. More lovely beans will soon appear. If I have had enough beans, I skip the pruning, simply pull the plants for the compost pile and use the space for a fall garden with broccoli, carrots and lettuce. We get lots of produce from limited space. Enjoy!

Ooh I just found this thread after doing a search of a question of something else I wanted to find out about bush beans... but I am happy I found this one!!

I am growing bush beans for the first time here and I just planted seeds tonight, in fact! I wish I planted them earlier to increase my chance of getting to prune the plant back more times... if I succesfully grow the beans, I might have the chance to prune them back once... but that is a huge maybe... it might start getting too hot by then.

I am about to try this with some beans grown early in a greenhouse which have now stopped producing. I am doubtful it will work as unlike leafy plants which will respond to cutting by growing more, beans grow in order to produce seed to reproduce the plant. Having taken 6 kg of beans away (all quite young) I imagine the plants are fairly exhausted and may not have the resources to produce all the extra needed vegetative growth and then more pods (forming seed is a very energy demanding process).

I anticipate there may be a small flush of new growth if I keep them well watered and fed, but I suspect in terms of harvest it would be far more profitable just to sow another batch which will have the vigour of the first.

I have tried cutting back climbing French beans (pole beans) and know that does not work (compared to pinching out the leader to encourage bushier growth). I doubt it will work on dwarf beans but we shall see.

I'm willing to try. I'm waiting on some fish emulsion from Amazon and I am going to try this. I have regular bush beans and wax beans. All bush type. We found there are rats that like to consume an entire plant when we plant it on the property where we can stake it. In my garden tower, the rats seem to leave it all alone.

What an amazing tip! Since many have asked, but no one has confirmed, I am happy to report: IT WORKED! I cut my bush bean plants down aggressively about a week ago. I left a few new leaves/growth and thought to myself, "Why not see what happens." One week later, I have flowers blooming across the new growth! Looks like another batch of beans will happen :) Which I'm really excited about because the second group of plants that I potted got mowed down by some hungry bunnies last night. Thanks for the insight, from 12 years ago :)

"I am about to try this with some beans grown early in a greenhouse which
have now stopped producing. I am doubtful it will work as unlike leafy
plants which will respond to cutting by growing more, beans grow in
order to produce seed to reproduce the plant. Having taken 6 kg of
beans away (all quite young) I imagine the plants are fairly exhausted
and may not have the resources to produce all the extra needed
vegetative growth and then more pods (forming seed is a very energy
demanding process)."

Under those conditions, it might be helpful to lightly fertilize. Use a water-based fertilizer, once only. This goes against conventional wisdom, since this forum is full of "lots of leaves, but no beans" posts caused by excessive N...but this should shock the plants back to their vegetative growth cycle.

The plants may not be as exhausted as you think, if you always harvested before they formed seed.

Do these beans regrow the following year if you cut them down?

Scarlet Running Beans are said to be perennials in warm climates & zone 8a if muched in the fall. I live in zone 8a, but Have never muched the beans so I can not say for sure.

"Do these beans regrow the following year if you cut them down?"

Common beans are annuals, and even in areas where the frost does not kill them, they will likely die within a year. Cutting the plants down does not impart extra frost protection. Runner beans will return from the roots in areas where the ground does not freeze; and in frost-free areas, limas will survive & bear the next year.

I has always told all beans are annuals, but I collect perennials vegetable & am mostly in the education phase, with a few plants. On youtube a woman said that you can cut the SRB stump off & mulch it & it will come back in the Spring.

As I said I have not done this, so I do not known it is true. Sunchokes I know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyLb8FcxvRM&t=1s

Check 1.50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N14BBUXIVW8

check 9.15

I tried hard trimming of some crappy looking bush bean last month and it didn't seem to work. I assume two weeks+ is enough for them to start growing again. Maybe they were in too bad of shape/ diseased.