I planted these this year and i made a teepee style trellis for them to climb on. I wasnt real sure at first if i would like them but it didnt take long to see they are my favorite bean to eat.

ARRR ! Darrs my favorite twos.
Got some yard long seeds from uncle.
Some 30yrs ago. Eyes been saving seeds ever years. Grow crazy.no strings 😄.
Eyes like em betters with mayonnaise on ems. Soup.stew.stir fry.or just sautaied by dar selfs. ARRR ! Da skies da limits !!!!
ERR ! Mees only gripe is .... When yous go to slice em...days roll all over da place🙈
Glad you u enjoy em. When i plant mine i plant a row of bush beans to. Bush produce fast. Then about when the bush stop producing. POW!!! The long beans arrr !!!! Coming on an on ! Usually till end of season.( cold ) arr!!! Stupid squash bugs got all but 3 of my plants this yr. 👺
Watch out for em. A couple hrs after sun rise. I grew mine one yr on tepees. Fun and inquisitive to others. But they produce better on a trellis.and are easier to spray if needed ! 😎😎😎
oh ! What zone arrr!!! You in ?

Oh yes, yard long beans are really nice. Taste tender and maybe slightly sweet.

My puppies went out and usually dont bother the garden but they ate my peppers hot and all roots and all so idk we making a giant yard out back so they stay out of stuff. I got a variety of nasty mean ants here that really like my beans. Mine have been producing all summer however i planted more they about foot tall now we have long growing season here.

TnWildflower said:My puppies went out and usually dont bother the garden but they ate my peppers hot and all roots and all so idk we making a giant yard out back so they stay out of stuff. I got a variety of nasty mean ants here that really like my beans. Mine have been producing all summer however i planted more they about foot tall now we have long growing season here.

Oh dear, bad pup!!

I know i work very hard just to get anything to grow i have been gardrning for years in Mo. Soil is so great there. Here its clay.

TnWildflower, in a way it's too bad you used to have good soil. It makes clay disappointing. (But after you amend it, clay makes some of the richest soils since it tends to buffer and hold, then gradually release, positively charged mineral ions.)

I've never had anything but heavy clay soil. So now, the discovery that I really can, reliably, cure that with enough compost and bark and grit, seems wonderful.

I find that, when I don't have enough compost, which is "always", that mixing the clay and compost very well through a fine screen and adding lots of bark fines and shreds, plus some grit, crushed stone and even some coarse sand helps the "not-enough-compost" act more like "enough-compost".

Not everyone agrees. At some point in the past, someone coined the phrase "clay plus sand equals concrete" and now few people think that sand (or grit, or anything BUT compost) is helpful in improving clay.

But the soil texture triangle and some people's experience contradict that. They indicate the truth behind the glitzy phrase:

"If you ONLY add sand to very heavy clay, you would have to add almost three parts of sand to one part of clay to get really well-draining sandy clay." Who can afford to import, spread and till in a TWELVE INCH LAYER OF COMPOST? Then renew most of that every year.

The lesson I take away from that is: "Don't rely ONLY on sand to improve clay!"

But if you don't HAVE enough compost to make your clay usable, try not-enough-compost plus some chunky stuff to improve aeration: bark fines, bark shreds, grit, crushed stone and coarse sand.

Some of that ADDED TO not-enough-compost gives better results. I "fluff the soil up" and then firm it down gently after doing this, and the aerated structure lasts for a year or two. After several years of adding compost and mulch, the "fluff and firm" dance seems less necessary.

Thankyou. I really have to agree with not adding sand i add moss we have it growing in the woods i also chopped up half of a dotty old cherry log its like paper added it plus leaves. It isnt easy being a tn gardener at time this is second year for me i found it very dissapounting because ive tried so hard. I built hugel kultur beds with some better luck. Still not producing much . beans love it. Lettace and raddished but tomatoes dont peppers dont the onions small so i simply have to work harder im really just preparing now for next year i suppose alk my strawberries but 5 didnt50ake it. I bought 50. Im going to rake gisnt piles of leaves throw ontop hugels next till they are about 3 foot tall throw clay ontop to hold down and wster.

>> Im going to rake gisnt piles of leaves throw ontop hugels next till they are about 3 foot tall throw clay ontop to hold down and wster.

I agree with adding lots of leaves and moss and deep-buried-wood (hugel). Over time, enough of those will "cure" clay, though you do have to keep adding it every year (adding as mulch works, too, over time).

Most people do agree with you about sand and clay!

I just dont got alot of money so i cant buy topsoil or compost i simply have to tough it out make my own

If you can get fall leaves they make a great mulch or compost or garden amendment. Best of all they are free.

Newyorkrita said:If you can get fall leaves they make a great mulch or compost or garden amendment. Best of all they are free.

Absolutely -- and grass clippings; I can't even begin to imagine how many cubic yards of clippings we've incorporated into our garden over the years. (Our lawn has suffered somewhat for it, but even so doesn't do too badly for a "country lawn").

Our soil started out as a very heavy clay-loam, which always had standing water after even a short rainstorm. Over the 25 years that we've been gardening here we've added LOTS of organic matter, plus a good bit of sand, which has totally changed the nature of the soil. We now have earthworms galore, and never any standing water in the garden.

We've also removed tons of rocks from the garden -- but that's a completely separate issue!

Yard is huge here and forest surrounds rather pretty. Lots of butterflies bigs of all kinds wildflowets trees and on and on. Hummingbirds galore.

TnWildflower said:Yard is huge here and forest surrounds rather pretty. Lots of butterflies bigs of all kinds wildflowets trees and on and on. Hummingbirds galore.

Beautiful!!

My gsrden is not so lovely most of it ive composted because it was in bad shape. I left for a month to go ser my daughter graduate no one weeded or watered it. So im going to replant few thing and just work on building the soil for next year.

Today. My yard long beans starting to bloom again.

hi Connie 😎
Yep.. Ants shure love yard longs. And farming aphids on them too.
Any luck using corn meal for ants ?
I looked up ant control. Theres several organic ways for control.even fire ants !
If you could afford some gypsum. It is a great amendment to clay soil. Farmers on west side of valley use it alot. Mainly to open up the clay so water will penatrate and go down.& other benifits.
Keep pouring on the organic materal. Both green and carbon. Manure to ! Call a gardener.they may be glad to have a place to dump there grass clipings off !
Diaries usually will sell you a truck load of manure cheep or some free.
Glad running into you again ! I dont understand getting around this website very well. So if you got a question for me. Tree mail me. Ok ! 😎😎😎

>> gypsum. It is a great amendment to clay soil.

Actually, from what I read, that holds true only where the clay soil is also high in sodium ("sodic" soil, or saline).

I think the mechanism is that highly charged Calcium ions (Ca++) are able to displace Sodium ions (Na+) from the clay. (Clay has negatively charged surface sites that attract positively charged ions like Ca++, Mg++, Potassium (K+) and Iron FE++ or Fe+++).

When one clay particle becomes coated with enough Ca++ ions, there become extra + charges on the surface, and now that entire clay particle can form ionic bonds to the next clay particle.

Joy and Halleluiah, when enough clay particles clump together, you have FEWER clay particles, and more of something that acts like silt particles! A big improvement in soil structure.

But if there were very few Na+ ions to start with, added Ca++ doesn't help much or at all.

Assuming that Fresno California is in a big drought like the rest of CA, and that the soil has been at all fertilized in the past with barely enough irrigation, there is a fair chance that it has become desalinized (excess NaCl), and hence IS sodic.

Well I'm glad I looked at this forum, yard long beans are not my favorite so I don't grow them anymore. But I do amend my clay soil the only money I spent was lumber when my husband built the raised beds but you can get scrap lumber or even use fallen limbs. Then I get free oak leaves from my yard, free coffee grounds by the ton from the Starbucks nearby. (Don't take the little packages of grounds, ask the manager to save everything and you get 3 plastic garbage bags full in just one day at a busy location.) Also free chicken manure from friend of a friend. So I spend zero on enriching the soil, use old newspapers and boxes from work to make lasagna layers. Do this around December. Come planting time it still looks like a pile of leaves but I plant right into it. Best garden ever.