If you're sowing seeds, according to the Natural Gardener (their website is a great resource for what to grow and when in Central Texas), they recommend the following:

Amaranth, Black Eyed Peas, Corn, Cucumbers, Malabar Spinach, New Zealand Spinach, Okra, Pumpkin, Summer Squash, Winter Squash.

No mention of beans. And for sowing plants, they just list tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, which you already have.

If you try beans, be sure and let us know how it went!

Too hot for beans. But you can plant them again in the fall. Butterbeans would work now, though,they love the heat. Summer squash may get squash vine borers if planted this late.

One year, I kept some pole beans alive from spring till fall as an experiment. I figured I do it with tomatoes and peppers, why not pole beans? I got a nice harvest in the spring, They didn't make anything in the summer (not that I expected them too). Once fall came and it cooled off, they never produced again.

This isn't about keeping beans for two seasons, but for planting them in the second season, which in Central Texas is July-November. (The first is February-June.)

Beans are an annual, as are tomatoes. You keep 'em alive after their production ceases, and they won't produce again. Peppers are perennials. You can keep them going for years, and they'll produce continuously, or at least when it gets warm.

Um, not exactly. You can get a second crop out of indeterminate tomatoes. A hard prune (I cut 'em down to about one-third) of otherwise healthy plants on or about August 1st will give me a second harvest in the fall. It's not as good as the first crop of course, but it works.

That's interesting about tomatoes. Never tried that. But that's not exactly a perennial, is it? I mean, it's just that the plant keeps flowering through one summer season, but after setting well in the spring, the flowers don't set again until it gets cooler.

As to New Zealand spinach, I've been skeptical about its heat tolerance, as it is recommended as a summer crop by many whose summer is vastly less abusive to plants than ours. That is, those northerners who have ONE growing season per year. But if Natural Gardener recommends it, I might give it a try.

I've gotten enthusiastic recommendations about yard-long beans, which evidently grow like crazy and are almost indestructible in summer heat. I've used those in stir fry, but never thought much about growing them.

No, I agree a tomato is not a perennial, but you can get a second crop. This is the first year I've grow bush tomatoes as well as indeterminate, so I'll see if it works with them as well. I also planted a couple of grafted tomatoes and it'll be interesting to see if they produce a 2nd crop and how they compare. Right now they are out-performing my regular tomato plants and I started picking tomatoes (planted March 10th) about 10 days ago.

I haven't tried the yard-long beans or the New Zealand spinach. I'd be concerned that even if the spinach does okay, the leaves might be too bitter due to our heat, but I haven't had the Natural Gardener steer me wrong yet. LOL

I planted okra for the first time this year. Can't wait to see how they do. To date the bugs and the cool weather have kept them in check. I expect them to rebound now that the heat has settled in for the summer.

Yes, grafted tomatoes in late season may work well. They can't be any different in performance than new plants. I'm convinced that the reason that tomatoes peter out in late season is just because the blooms keep getting higher and higher on the plant. By late summer, those blooms are a LONG way away from the roots, and fruiting just becomes a lot less efficient. So the strategy is to put less stem between the blooms and the roots.

Okra is an obvious option for deep summer, but my wife doesn't like it.

Actually, Natural Gardener recommends regular pole and bush beans as well for July planting. I think that answers my original question. It's not only NOT a "don't even bother trying" deal, but a recommendation to try them.

Sometime late last summer just for fun I planted beans from a bag of 15 bean soup mix. I got a lot of beans before it froze in November. I wish could tell you when I planted it or what beans I planted. There were two kinds of red beans, one kind of white bean, and I think something cross pollinated because I had a couple of plants full of red and white swirly beans. Let's see if this link works. Anyway, I didn't expect much, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Here is a link that might be useful: picture of my beans

What a clever idea, planting from a bag of bean soup mix. That sounds like fun.

I think that beans aren't supposed to cross pollinate, though. The flowers are self-fertile, I've heard, and pollinate even before they open. But maybe you got around that. Self pollinators include beans, and nightshade family (eggplant, tomatoes, peppers).

I picked some some 'Panama' beans from Shiela at the San Antonio Plant Swap. She says they produce through the heat of summer.. I never got around to planting them, but if anyone wants to try them, althought this may not be the best time to plant, just send me an emai with your address.. Not even sure if they are still viable, but I can soak them and find out.

This post was edited by roselee on Thu, May 23, 13 at 13:40

I always get a great second flush from my indeterminate 'maters in the fall. If you can keep the vines alive through July, you'll have wonderful fresh tomatoes for Turkey Day dinner. I picked my last tomatoes last fall in mid-December, and I never prune them back.

Same here, Robyn............I don't prune, just keep them alive and they produce until frost. I pick all the green ones, place them on newspaper in my pool kitchen and I have "fresh" tomatoes for some time in the winter.

Well then, I'll look forward to having fresh tomatoes from my spring plants when my beans come in in September! Sauteed green beans and tomatoes. I like that!

I might try pruning only half the plants and compare the results. :) I was originally taught to hard prune the tomatoes a few years after I moved to Texas, but that was so long ago, I don't know where I picked up that method.

I can imagine that, with vine-type tomatoes, like cherries, pruning might be smart. When my cherry tomatoes are 7 or 8-feet tall (as they almost are now), pumping water to the tips when the temperature is fiercely hot has to be a major strain, even if the ground is kept moist. I'm pretty sure that's why I have trouble keeping them alive beyond July. Pruning them to one-third the size might well make it a lot easier for them to stay alive.

One year I did have a good crop of rattlesnake beans that made it through the summer still producing somewhat, and I did an experiment to see if they would perk up in the fall, or if the beans that I planted for the fall would overtake them. The Spring planted beans were a disappointment continuing their demise instead of perking up, and the newly planted beans were prolific. So much for that experiment.

I have very good luck planting cream peas and summer peas in the summer. I use cream peas and other summer peas as snap beans when their pods are small. They are similar in flavor and good.

I have planted half runner beans in july successfully. They were able to take the heat one year. It was NOT any of the hot years that we have had lately.

as for Yard long beans. Some LOVE the heat as long as they are kept moist. I will warn you that some long beans are for cool weather. They have MANY varieties. I have three planted right now.

Dan - almost all of my tomatoes are cherries/plums/grapes/romas .. something small-ish because I love them and they're much easier to grow. I prefer not to prune. The vines just grow up and over the 4' cages until they touch the ground on the other side. It's a big-ole mess by late season, but they always put out a bunch of new blossom with the cooler weather. I start feeding again in early September. Give it a try - and good luck!

Thanks, Robyn. Most of my tomatoes are also small-variety ones, for the same reasons. But my problem is survival through the worst part of the summer, and my 8-foot vines (sounds like you have similar lengths) seem not to be able to pump water fast enough. That's why pruning seemed like a sensible idea. If you don't prune, do you just keep the ground soaking wet under your patch?

Dan, I don't really keep them "soaking wet." I deep water every week or ten days. They don't always look very nice and, in fact, can appear like they're doomed. But since there is so much vine, the ground is shaded. I mulch very heavily - 4" or more too - and so the roots survive.