So when green beans and peas are done blooming and producing should you dig them completely out? Or just leave the foliage cut down? Old Gardeners advice.

     Sorry I didn't post yet today.  BUSY day with the girls coming to transplant, and do we have the plants to do!!!   I have to love it, love it and love it more.  Planting is fun and here we go in full production getting ready for spring.
      So here is what I found some more from the Book, Tips from the Old Gardeners
      Don't pull up the roots of beans and peas.  When you've had your fill of beans and peas and they have nothing left to give, they leave a straggly, untidy mess behind.  It's very tempting to pull the whole lots up, keep the growing frame or sticks for next year, and chuck the rest on the bonfire or compost heap.  BUT hang on a minute!
     Those little white globs, a bit like small boils, that you see on the roots are not some unmentionable fungus or the handiwork of malicious but unidentified insects.  They are storage pods for valuable nitrates which will do your soil no end of good if you leave them in peace to get on with it.  SO by all means tidy up the bean and pea patch by cutting off the tops just above the soil, but leave the roots where they are to enjoy the winter unmolested, and they'll repay you by replenishing your soil in time for next season.
      Pruning the general rule of thumb for trees and shrubs that need an annual prune is: if it flowers before midsummer, prune in the autumn, if after midsummer, prune the next spring.  Till next time, this is Becky Litterer from Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty, Iowa