Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm not afraid of using tools, I've used the jig saw and drill etc to make some edges from the scaffolding boards round the blueberries this week. I've never had any training, so often make things how I want them, but often feel that there may be a better way of doing the job.

I quite often have a look on u-tube to see how other people do things if I'm not sure.

Noooo, that's fine PP. And thank you for the effort, I'm also scared with computer stuff.

Yes, I can see quite clearly, would it be ok to allow a drip into a container ? Then collect the juice every few days or weeks ?

Nice clear photo.

Plum, I've done exactally the same on the back of my shed The only thing I've done diffrent, Is i glued 2 bottle lids together, with a hole through the middle, so the liquid just runs straight through into another bottle, ready to be used or stored. I have 3, 2L bottles already from this year :/ lol

Very interested in the issue of snipping out the main ahoot of climbing French and Runner beans if they're getting too leggy . Always assumed this would kill the plant but you're often advised to do this with sweet peas, arn't you?

Is there anybody else on here who has done this and subsequently raised a succeasful crop with them rather than killing them off? When you've put in all the effort of getting them this far it seems to me to be a brave man or woman who would snap their heads off without a 100% guarantee that they would regenerate and go on to crop well. Having said this. i have inadvertently done it occasionally with tomatoes, chillies and peppers when I've accidentally snapped the top of a stem off when transplanting.

When you grow climbing French or Runner beans one of the instructions is that when they reach the top of the supports you pinch them out so that you don't get a weight of growth hanging over the top of support. They also the produce more beans further back down the stem. The beans don't die at this point, they are only just getting producing.

I have noticed both French and Runner beans on which the main stem has broken off after planting, sometimes as low as 6 inches high, I just left them and some really little ones that had not produced any side nodules did die off but others grew stronger side shoots and produced quite normally.

I put up 8ft supports and my neighbour erects 6ft, both sets of beans grow to top of canes and need pinching out.

I won't be growing climbing beans or even bush beans this year, they don't do well here. If I allowed the Sea Buckthorne hedge to grow higher it would help.

It's the wind, even in summer we've had enough wind to turn the foliage brown and uproot bush beans. I tried plastic bell cloches on the bush beans but you have to peg them down. Most of my soil is far too loose for pegs to do any good.

I tried every year, always French because I'm not keen on runner beans though they are nice picked very young.

I did pinch the tops when they reached six foot high, no problems. I also tried east-west planting and compared to north-south that didn't make much difference either.

Back to the wind problem, if you drive here as a visitor then within a couple of miles you notice the vegetation changing, other than a few pine plantations and sycamore in the valleys we don't have many trees. Mostly it's gorse and blackthorn leaning away from the south-west. Also, compared to Hampshire and Berkshire we get leaves later and they fall earlier. Coming home after visiting those counties is like landing on the moon and though home is austere compared, it has its own beauty.

I am glad I held on to my beans and didn't plant out. I have tried OH tip on pinching out half my plants and so far it doesn't seem to have done them any harm. some have produced side shoots which are now getting their curly bits. The others now reaching for the sky almost.

I noticed from my Diary last year we had a very warm spring and I did plant out in April. You just can never tell with our English weather. All a game of chance I think.

Beryl.

Hi Richard

Would you not be able to put a windbreak around your raised beds to grow beans, assuming you like them enough of course! You seem pretty handy with adjusting things to work so just wondered if there was a way you could secure posts/rods to the sides & add some sort of pocket sewn on to that green windbreak material so you could just slip it over the posts. Dwarf beans don't grow that high & are highly productive. (I've just finished last year's from the freezer & it wasn't the best year for them).

Assuming your beds are the same size you could still rotate each year & re-use the windbreak each year, or use it for something else you want to protect.

Westi

Richard, our allotment is very exposed to wind (albeit not directly from the sea) and I grow dwarf beans under a netting cloche which does not afford as much resistance to the wind as a solid cloche would do, it therefore does not get blown away. When it is really still and warm, I open both ends, but I understand that dwarf beans do not need insects for pollination as runner beans would, so the covering up doesn't matter.

Monika wrote: but I understand that dwarf beans do not need insects for pollination as runner beans would, so the covering up doesn't matter.

If anyone wants a climbing runner that is self fertile then 'Firestorm' fits the bill.
Last year we had good crop of nice size beans with enjoyable taste

Monica/Westi, you both have a good point. I don't understand why I hadn't considered growing bush beans inside a hooped tunnel when I actually modified my ignite foot beds by digging out and placing a timber down the middle so I could fit hoops. (The hoop width is about four-foot.

In fact you-two have now jerked me into action, I'll fit hoops and netting then place those bell-clothes over the planted been seeds whilst they germinate and whilst they are young, the netting will stop the wind enough to stop them blowing away.

I hate it when someone comes up with a solution I should have thought of (only joking, I don't hate it. Just embarresed)

Thank you.

Hi Pa Snip,
We gave Firestorm runner beans a three year trial here and they didn't produce the beans that we had expected and we have settled back on to Wisley Magic and although not listed as self fertile they produced enormous bunches of beans on every group of flower stem
which was what we had expected from Firestorm which didn't materialize. We also trialled Moonstone and although these were more productive the production period was very shortlived. With Wisley Magic they are stringless even when missed picking and grown on to 15" and production period is well beyond the first frosts.
We grow at an elevation of just under 500 feet and many things do not seem to perform here as they do for others.
JB.