Green bean · Puente Alto, Santiago Metropolitan, Chile
When to plant green beans in Puente Alto
Main outdoor window
5-19 Oct
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
14 September
In Puente Alto, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
24 Nov - 4 Dec
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Puente Alto
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Sow direct
5-19 Oct
Held back until the soil is warm enough for this crop. The frost date on its own would say 21 Sep, which is too cold for it to start.
Harvest
24 Nov - 4 Dec
Green beans through the year
Against the frost risk in Puente Alto
Why these dates
Sow a short row every two weeks from one week after last frost until ten weeks before first frost. Beans crop heavily for a fortnight then decline, so succession matters more than quantity.
Beans are killed by the lightest frost at any stage. They also germinate poorly below 15C, so patience in spring pays.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Green beans are timed for direct sowing 1 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Puente Alto.
With one correction, which is the note at the top of the page: the offset alone would put this crop in soil that is still too cold for it. Where the frost date and the soil temperature disagree, the dates here follow the soil, because a seed in cold ground either rots or waits, and a sowing made a fortnight later usually overtakes it.
The median frost-free season here is 265 days, against 50 to 60 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Puente Alto
Other vegetables to time
Growing green beans in Puente Alto
When should I plant green beans in Puente Alto?
Aim for 5-19 Oct in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 12-26 Oct - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
Can I plant green beans earlier in Puente Alto?
Frost is finished by about 21 Sep, but the soil is still too cold. Green beans will not start until it reaches 15°C (59°F), and here that is around 5 Oct. Going in earlier usually means seed that rots or transplants that sit and sulk, and a later sowing catches them up.
When will green beans be ready to harvest in Puente Alto?
Expect to start picking around 24 Nov - 4 Dec, based on 50 to 60 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will green beans tolerate?
Beans are killed by the lightest frost at any stage. They also germinate poorly below 15C, so patience in spring pays.