Last edited on November 02, 2026. View history
Holy Climbing Bean
Holy Climbing Bean
A variety of bean
A climbing shell-out dry bean, also called angel bean, from Whanganui, where it was received in 2014 from Anne Handley of Omaka. The story goes that it came from France via the Netherlands, tied to a legend about a French pastor who hid church treasure underground and planted beans over it. The creamy, rounded seeds carry black markings that look like little painted pictures, and the taste is called divine; they have a smoky flavour and cook quickly with no soaking. Sow in trays and transplant 10 cm apart under a trellis at the second leaves.
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Holy climbing bean facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For holy climbing bean, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 7°C and a shortest growing cycle of 50 days at its best temperature, about 675 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your holy climbing bean will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Growing holy climbing beans
- Dig the bed and add compost 1 week before sowing
- Put up supports for climbing beans 1 week after sowing
- Water regularly at sowing every week
- Weed carefully 3 weeks after sowing every 2 weeks
- Pick beans regularly at first harvest every week
- Leave some pods to dry for seed 6 weeks after first harvest
- Pull out finished plants and dig in the roots 8 weeks after first harvest
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Phaseolus vulgaris L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Fabales Leguminosae |
|---|---|
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | prostrate/procumbent/semi-erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, organic |
| Optimal soil fertility | moderate |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours) |
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