Why no Lima's?

[ceresone]

I have georgeous lima vines( climbing type) lots of blooms--and lots of pollination, but beans arent setting?any ideas why? the extremely hot weather, maybe? they've really grown, all summer.

[Paquebot]

If you have blossoms and a month before frost, there's room for hope. Remember that pole limas take a lot longer than bush limas. Some varieties are listed as high as 90 days whereas some bush types are 65. Although limas aren't as affected by heat as regular snap beans, heat will slow them. The previous two years I grew White Willow Leaf, a 90 day variety, and they were about done at this time. This year I'm growing Christmas, at 80 days, and 12 plants haven't produced a cup of beans yet. I have a lot of pods but just a few blossoms left now. What's there now is all I'm going to get.

Lima beans don't need pollinators but the blossoms are not perfect and have a lot of nectar. Therefore bees and other insects enjoy them and thus limas WILL cross. 125 feet between varieties is suggested and I can grow only one lima bean per year for seed saving purposes.

Martin

[ceresone]

Martin, I, too have Christmas Limas, the pods on those set on, and turned brown without filling out. thankfully, the others are over 125 feet away, so while they will be mixed (2 types) the Christmas Limas will be ok
thanks for the encouragement, maybe i'll still get some to can.
(oh, by the way, garlic did fantastic, plenty this year for using, and replanting)

[dennisjp]

Last year a deer destroyed my garden in one night. This year everything went fine until a few days ago. I had replanted my RomaII beans hoping to get a second crop before frost and they had pods on them about an inch long. Boy I was happy, until I went out there, I think it was Tuesday or maybe Wenesday. Something had eat ever darn plant down about half way to the ground.
There wasn't any deer tracts this time, so I think it was my friendly neighborhood goffer.
Can you eat goffer, lol.

[Paquebot]

Ceresone, although Christmas pole limas don't appear to be nearly as prolific as some others I've grown, there's no problem with filling out their pods. Just collected another 8 or 9 pods this morning and all but one had 3 beans with the odd one having 2. With the sun shining through the green pods, it appears that most have beans in them.

Dennis, your problem sounds like a rabbit, and probably a young one. They are my absolute worse enemy for beans. Deer will usually wait until a plant is tall enough to have a few leaves and then just the eat the top leaf or two. Rabbits will eat both leaves and stems. Especially annoying is when the beans are well-established pole type and rabbits only eat a few inches out of the stem. No possible recovery then.

Martin