🫘 King of the Garden Pole Lima Bean

Phaseolus lunatus ‘King of the Garden’
The pole lima with the royal name and the harvest to back it: huge white beans on a vine that climbs past your head.
Sun
Full sun, 6-8 hrs
Days to harvest
88-90 days
Spacing
6-8 inches apart at the base of a trellis, rows 3-4 feet apart
Soil pH
6.0-6.8
Zones
Grown as an annual everywhere; in Florida, a spring-through-fall crop — limas love heat and a long season

What it looks like

No verified photo of ‘King of the Garden Pole Lima Bean’ itself was found, so the pictures below show the species — the same plant, photographed generally.

King of the Garden Pole Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus ‘King of the Garden’) — Flower of Lima beans
Flower of Lima beans. Photo: Ravikiran vilas jadhav, CC BY-SA 4.0.
King of the Garden Pole Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus ‘King of the Garden’) — Lima bean (Assam)
Lima bean (Assam). Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0.
King of the Garden Pole Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus ‘King of the Garden’) — Shelling lima beans
Shelling lima beans. Photo: Pacopac, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Why this variety

King of the Garden is the pole lima that made the name stick: a vigorous vine climbing 10-12 feet, loaded with large pods holding big, plump white beans. It is an old variety — in catalogs since the 1880s — and it earned its crown the slow way, by out-yielding other pole limas season after season in gardens that had no reason to be sentimental.

Limas are heat lovers in a way snap beans are not, which makes King of the Garden a natural Florida plant: it wants a long, warm season and rewards one with a long harvest of shell beans. The beans are the classic large white lima — buttery, starchy, and built for succotash, soups, and long simmers. If you have only ever eaten limas from a freezer bag, a fresh King of the Garden bean is a different food.

If you have not grown the species before, start with the Lima Bean growing guide for the general picture, then come back here for what makes this variety different.

How to grow

Set up a tall, sturdy trellis before planting — this vine passes 10 feet and gets heavy with pods. Sow King of the Garden about an inch deep at the trellis base, 6-8 inches apart, once soil is warm (at least 65°F for limas, which are fussier about cold soil than snap beans). In Florida, sow in spring once soil is truly warm, and again in late summer for a fall harvest; limas keep bearing through heat that stops snap beans.

Give the vine room and air: a crowded pole lima row turns humid inside, and humidity invites disease. Mulch to hold moisture, and keep water steady from flowering through pod-fill — limas abort flowers in drought, and a long-season vine needs steady water for a long time.

Water & feeding

About an inch a week, steady through flowering and pod-fill — and for a 90-day pole lima, steady is a season-long commitment. Limas fix their own nitrogen via rhizobium nodules, so skip nitrogen fertilizer. Worm castings worked into the bed before planting supply phosphorus and micronutrients without burning seeds.

Common problems

[‘Lima bean pod borers and stink bugs target the pods — scout pods as they swell and handpick pests. Root-knot nematodes can trouble limas in sandy Florida soil; rotate beds and add organic matter. Rust and blight love humidity: water at the base, do not handle wet vines, rotate beds yearly. Poor germination almost always means soil that was not warm enough — limas want 65°F or better.’]

Harvest

Pick King of the Garden pods when they feel plump and the beans inside are full-sized but still tender — shell them fresh for the best flavor. For dry limas, leave pods on the vine until they rattle and dry, then shell and store. The vine bears over a long season, so pick regularly: a pod left to dry signals the vine to slow down.

Nerdy fact: King of the Garden has been sold since the 1880s, which makes it older than the light bulb’s widespread use — and it is still in catalogs because large white pole limas have no real substitute. A variety that survives 140 years of seed catalogs was voted for by gardeners, one packet at a time.

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Saving seeds

King of the Garden is the pole lima that made the name stick, a vigorous vine climbing 10 to 12 feet, loaded with large pods holding big, plump white beans, and it is an old variety, in catalogs since the 1880s, so saved seed comes true — sow about an inch deep at the trellis base, once soil is warm, at least 65°F. The full method is in the Saving seeds section of the Lima Bean guide.