Bean plant fertility question?

[nao57]

I'm also curious if others have done experiments to 'prove' the fact that beans are nitrogen fixers for the soil, and if they noticed noticable increase of soil fertility the next year afterwards? Thanks.

Supposedly they pull nitrogen from the air. And its supposed to put nitrogen INTO the soil and make the soil better instead of worse.

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I'm also curious if anyone has tried to mix putting clover around and with the bean plants for the same reasonings?

Thank you

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm also curious if others have done experiments to 'prove' the fact that beans are nitrogen fixers for the soil, and if they noticed noticable increase of soil fertility the next year afterwards? Thanks.

Supposedly they pull nitrogen from the air. And its supposed to put nitrogen INTO the soil and make the soil better instead of worse.

///

I'm also curious if anyone has tried to mix putting clover around and with the bean plants for the same reasonings?

Thank you

Me again.

I grew up on a farm, and learned back then about crop rotation, for the very reason you are saying for our gardens. Most farmers rotate in soybeans, peas, alfalfa, or similar every couple of years to replenish the nitrogen in the fields they mainly grow corn in, which needs a lot of nitrogen.

We plant a lot of pole beans and though we have a grove of clover next to our garden, do not let it spread to the garden. Clover is great, but it also spreads and draws bees that I prefer not to be in the garden when I am.

The pole beans can't be planted anywhere else, so they suffice getting some horse, cow, and/or chicken manure every year, but we do a rotation on most everything else, in that we switch where the tomatoes and corn especially are, and swap them with the peas. The kale and lettuce do better over by the beans. It all gets a combination of the various manures we have or have access to so that helps tremendously, but rotating things around can make a difference as well.

 

[whatthechickens]

Legumes will fix nitrogen via the bacteria they house in their root nodules, however a common misconception is that this nitrogen (in form of ammonia) is then made available to other plants in the vicinity.
This would mean the poor bean is doing the hard work for other plants to leech off!
In reality the nitrogen won't be available to other plants until the legumes are dead and broken down in your compost (or tilling them into the soil).
So legumes are great way to enrich your soil with nitrogen but it takes time.