Beans & peas
Pinto beans (dry)
Bush type, ~90 to 100 days to dry.
- Outside
- Direct after frost, soil 60F+, late May
- Where
- In ground or raised bed
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Even through pod fill; then let it dry down
- Harvest
- Sep to Oct, dry on plant
Care
- Water
- Keep it even through pod fill, a deep soak every 3 to 4 days in a dry summer week and less when rain helps; established plants take a short dry stretch in stride. The finger test rules in July and August. Cut the water back as the pods yellow so they cure standing, and soak the soil, not the leaves.
- Sow
- Direct sow in late May into warm soil, an inch deep, spacing seeds about 4 inches across the widest block you can spare. Bush plants, sown once, no thinning and no succession.
- Feed
- A self-feeding legume; a shovel of compost or castings at planting is all it asks. Skip any extra feed, since heavy nitrogen trades pods for foliage.
- Ready
- Ready 90 to 100 days on. Pods crackle dry and beans go hard through September and October. Pull and hang a plant under cover if a wet week beats the dry-down.
- Trouble
- Soft pods when frost looms: pull the plants and finish drying them indoors. Skeletonized leaves: Mexican bean beetle, tolerable on a dry crop unless defoliation runs past a fifth of the plant. Rotting stems in a wet year: white mold, give the rows more air and rotate.
In a bag?
- No
- Pintos pay for dry yield by the square foot, and a bag under 15 gallons holds too few plants to be worth it; give them the open ground or a wide bed block.
Pintos are the refried-beans project, sown once in late May and harvested dry 90 to 100 days later. Same easy program as the kidney beans; the difference shows up in January, when the winter pot is refritos instead of chili.
Growing
Direct sow into warm soil at the end of May, about four inches apart in the widest block the ground can spare; bags under 15 gallons are not worth it for dry yield. The plants are bush type and self-sufficient: mulch, keep them watered until the pods plump, then let the ground go dry so the beans cure on the plant. Harvest in September or October when the pods crackle; a plant pulled and hung upside down under the porch roof finishes reliably. Shell once the beans are hard, and jar them bone dry.
Varieties
Othello is a dependable northern pinto bred for exactly this 90 to 100 day window; failing a seed order, a handful from a grocery bag of dry pintos will sprout and grow true, since the type is open pollinated.
In the kitchen
Simmered from dry with onion and salt, then mashed in their own liquid for refritos. The fresh crop cooks faster than store beans, so check the pot early.