At the end of the LA Garden show earlier this spring, my booth neighbor and fellow Gardenerd, Nysha Dalgren of Ardenwoods Edibles let me choose a plant or two to take home. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try something new, and the tiny tendrils of a Christmas Lima Bean plant were calling out to me.
When I got home, I tucked the plant in behind a cluster of popping corn and waited for it to take hold. This was my attempt at 2 out of 3 of the Three Sisters Garden of native American tradition. Before long, the bean plant had overtaken the dried corn stalks, so I had to add a trusty trellis for added support.
This is one plant. Photo taken in September 2010.
At this writing the trellis is completely covered with vines.
Soon the vine began to flower and form pods – broad, flat pods with delicious potential.
Flowers and young pods
Every day I would wander out to see if any pods were dry. Some pods near the bottom had started to dry out. The beans inside rattled excitedly.
Christmas Lima Bean pod drying out
As more pods have dried out, the little handful or beans in the kitchen continues to grow. The plant is still in full swing, but we expect a very good yield from our one little plant.
Christmas Lima Beans are flat fava or lima-sized beans with burgundy spots, a potato texture and a chestnut taste.
So if you feel like trying something different next spring/summer, give Christmas Lima Beans a try. You won’t be disappointed. We’ll update this post when we get a final count on the harvest later this season.
Got beans? What do you do with them? Share your favorite ways with us here.
You might try watering with compost tea, or adding some seabird guano (sparingly) to see if that makes a difference. We’ve seen results with that.
just blooming not setting on the pods…..
Are your blooms falling off without setting fruit? If they are setting fruit, but just taking a long time, I wouldn’t worry too much. Around here (Los Angeles), Christmas Limas are perennial crops. It could be that your plant is just taking its sweet time.
Here is a basic plant profile for Christmas Lima Beans. If you see anything outside of what you’re doing, try adjusting based on this: http://www.backyardgardener.com/plantname/pd_65b3.html
I hope this helps.
This is my first year of growing Christmas lima beans…seed was pricey but wanted to grow..something different..we live in Southern IL.. the vines are doing great and blooms everywhere but no pods…..does it take a long time for the pods to mature? Very disappointed so far…we have been watering faithfully so the drought is not the problem….any suggestions?
I have been planting Christmas Lima beans, along with scarlet runner beans, for a few years all around our 20 foot by 20 foot garden. We let them grow up the fence around the complete garden. There are pretty white flowers on the Christmas Lima plants and pretty red flowers on the scarlet runner plants, for part of the summer and then huge pods grow. I collect all kinds of dried beans and have them in a huge decorative jar in my kitchen. My son and I rent a garden spot in a community garden in North Dakota. Fun times and these two beans are a good conversation piece. We get to meet more people as they stop by to ask about our pretty red flowers and white flowers around the garden and again when the huge pods grow. Dried, cooked beans are a real treat along with collecting the dried beans and seeing the beautiful art work of each individual bean!!