Beans & peas
Pinto beans (dry)
One-shot spring crop; dry harvest in July.
- Outside
- Direct mid Apr to mid May, once soil is warm
- Where
- In ground or raised bed
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Even through pod fill; dry down before harvest
- Harvest
- Jul, dry on the plant
Care
- Water
- Keep it even through pod fill, a deep soak every few days in a dry June and less when rain helps; established plants take a short dry stretch in stride. Cut the water back as the pods yellow so they cure standing.
- Sow
- Direct sow once, mid-April to mid-May into warm soil, an inch deep and about 4 inches apart across the widest block you can spare. No thinning, no succession, and no fall round: a 90 to 100 day dry bean cannot outrun this county's 60 day fall rule.
- 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
- An April sowing crackles dry through July. Pull and hang a plant under cover if a wet week beats the dry-down, shell once the beans are hard, and jar them bone dry. Expect modest, not generous; this is the honest-hard crop of the bean row.
- Trouble
- Flowers and small pods dropped through July heat: the gap at work, and the reason the sowing goes as early as the soil warms rather than at the late end of the window. Pods still leathery when a wet week looms: pull the plants and finish them under the porch roof.
In a bag?
- No
- A dry-bean stand pays by the square foot, and the Texas 2 gallon bean minimum makes sense only for snap beans eaten green; give pintos the open ground or a wide bed block and let cowpeas carry the summer pot.
Pintos are the one honest dry bean here: one spring sowing, a modest dry harvest in July, and the frijoles pot as the reward.
Growing
The one dry bean the Texas sources name for gardens: the state green bean sheet carries a pinto section of its own. Sow into warm soil in mid-to-late April, about four inches apart in the widest block the ground can spare. Earlier is better, because a sowing that flowers in June fills pods before the worst heat while a late one flowers into it. The plants run bush to short-vine and sprawl a little; the block, not a trellis, carries them. Self-sufficient otherwise: mulch, water until the pods plump, then let the ground go dry so the beans cure on the plant. No fall round exists for a 90 to 100 day dry bean in a county that caps fall warm-season sowings at 60 days; cowpeas take over the summer legume job from there.
Varieties
The Texas pinto list names Dwarf Horticultural, Luna and UI-114. Dwarf Horticultural is the classic cranberry-type horticultural bean, so the borlotti niche rides along under that Texas name; nothing else in the state sources answers for dry beans here.
In the kitchen
Simmered from dry into frijoles de la olla, then mashed in their own liquid for refritos; a July jar of pintos backs up the salsa pot all winter.