How To Successfully Grow Puerto Rican Black Beans

The Puerto Rican Black Bean is quite honestly the easiest, most prolific crop I’ve ever grown. If you’re looking to add a simple home-grown food as a pantry staple this year, then I absolutely recommend you grow Puerto Rican Black Beans too.

Why You Should Grow Puerto Rican Black Beans

As mentioned, they are so easy to grow. They thrive in the Southern heat when most other crops struggle with heat stress, disease, or pests.

Secondly, you can plant just a couple of seeds and end up with a ton of black beans. The first time that that I saw these in Jenny’s garden, I thought about how we should be pushing these to new homesteaders, making them their first plant of self-sufficiency. They make for easy long term food storage.

Next, I’ve had thoughts of just casting them out in my fields where we struggle with grass, and letting them work as ground cover. If nothing else, they will add lots of biomass as we work to build soil. And they’ll continue to provide beans to harvest or feed to animals.

Speaking of biomass, that’s a ton of green material to add to a compost pile. Browns are usually easier to find than greens. Puerto Rican Black Beans provide loads of vines and leaves to work into a large compost system.

Fourth, they are vertical growers, conserving garden space, in theory. This vining plant can also take over an area if you aren’t careful. Clip back vines that threaten surrounding spaces to keep them in check.

Last, beans have many health benefits, including:

• lower cholesterol as a good source of soluble fiber
• excellent source of lean protein and complex carbohydrates
• lower risk of cardiovascular disease 
• helps to balance blood sugar with a low glycemic index
• reduce risk of cancer with antioxidants and polyphenols

How to Plant Puerto Rican Black Beans

Have I talked you into an attempt to grow Puerto Rican Black Beans? I sure hope so. Now, let’s look at how to get started.

Puerto Rican Black Beans are a type of cowpea, so they thrive in the summer heat. Wait until your soil is consistently 70°F before planting. Choose a space that gets plenty of sunlight for at least 6-8 hours a day (longer is fine).

1. I like to inoculate seeds with mykorrhizae fungi when growing my legumes, especially if I’m going to plant them in a space that I’ve never grown legumes before. This step is totally optional.
2. Plant dried beans in well-draining soil, about 1 inch deep.
3. Water them well, and they should germinate in 7-10 days.

Grow Puerto Rican Black Beans – Care

Make sure to water them well as the beans sprout and the plants get established. 

Provide a tall trellis or long fence for them to grow on. They will grow just fine along the ground, but that invites other critters from the ground to enjoy them too.

After that, just let them go until harvest.

That’s it, and that’s why they are my new favorite bean to grow in my own garden. I’m getting so many beans from every single plant, which will supply my family with a year’s worth of dried beans.

We have joked on the podcast that these seeds should come with a warning: “vines take over and turn into The Thing That Won’t Die.”

Pest and Disease Resistant

I’ve seen lots of ants, aphids, and stink bugs on my Puerto Rican Black Beans, but they haven’t hurt the plants or the beans. The plants just keep producing a crazy amount of beans, faster than anything can hurt them.

I wouldn’t worry with rust or fungus either. Neither seem to be able to stop the growth of more bean pods.

Grow Puerto Rican Black Beans – The Harvest

You can pick your Puerto Rican Black Beans when they’re green but fat. The green bean will grow to be about 10-12 inches long, and you can see the beans through the skin. This works if you want fresh beans to prepare a meal.

Alternatively, you can leave these beans until the bean pods are dried up and brown. I have yet to have a mold or fungus problem like some other cowpeas that we attempt to let dry on the plants. 

After you grow Puerto Rican Black Beans, store them in an airtight container with a couple of bay leaves to keep out bugs. Keep them in a cool, dark place, and your dry beans will last for years.

Grow Puerto Rican Black Beans – Sustainability

​This is my first and last year of purchasing seeds to grow Puerto Rican Black Beans here on my own homestead. The seeds are simple to save, dry, and plant so that I’ll always have a repeating life cycle of growing them in the garden.

If you want a never ending supply of beans for the rest of your life, just follow these easy tips to grow them too. You can get your seeds from these reputable sources we have a relationship with:

• Seed The Stars
• Urban Harvest
• Jerra’s Garden

Concluding How to Grow Puerto Rican Black Beans

If you’re looking for a hardy, high-yield crop that practically takes care of itself, grow Puerto Rican Black Beans in your garden. They thrive in the Southern heat, enrich your soil, and produce an incredible harvest with minimal effort. 

Whether you’re aiming for greater food security, experimenting with cover crops, or just want a steady supply of protein-rich beans in your pantry, this is the plant to grow. Once you try them, you’ll see why they’ve quickly become a favorite among homesteaders—and likely your new go-to bean, too.

Happy Planting!

Donna and her family have been homesteading for most of their 20+  years together in some shape or fashion. She currently lives on their 20 acre farm where they grow as much food as possible. What started as a just a few laying hens, has grown into large gardens, pastured poultry, pork, and lamb. They are continuously evolving their small farm to not suit their family’s needs, but also providing to their local community. Donna’s favorite part of the family farm is her self-built micro-dairy, where she gets to love on dairy cows while serving her local community. Milking, cheesemaking, and processing dairy have become the soul of their homestead and the center of their farm.