How to grow lima beans

Lima bean is a warm-season legume grown for broad, flat pods and starchy, buttery seeds, eaten fresh-shelled at the cream stage or dried for storage. Compared with common snap and shell beans, it wants more warmth and a longer stretch of hot weather to fill its pods, part of the appeal for gardeners chasing a bean with more body than a snap bean gives. Bush and vining forms both exist, with vining types needing sturdy support and a longer season, so it fits a summer garden as a crop planted once the soil has warmed and mostly left alone until picking time.

The hardest part of growing lima beans well is regional heat, not any single cultural practice. University of Minnesota Extension notes that lima beans need warm soil, warm weather, and a longer season than common beans, and that during a cooler-than-normal summer the plants simply perform poorly regardless of care. A second-year gardener who grew snap beans successfully the year before, and treats lima beans as an interchangeable substitute on the same schedule, often ends up with vigorous vines and few filled pods, because the crop needed heat the season did not provide.