Saving beans to sow next year....

[Sussexfleur]

Hi there,
how do I know when my runner beans are big enough to pick and save for next years sowing? and how do i dry/save them? This is all new to me!!!
Thanks
Cathy

[richard p]

leave the beans on the plant till the pods go black and brittle then pick and remove the beans, the beans will be hard, purple and black, keep them somewhere warm and airy to dry fo a week or two, then store in a paper bag or envelope. in very wet weather it can be better to pull up the whole plant and hang them in a dry shed for the beans to mature.

[Johnboy]

Hi Sussexfleur (from Yorkshire???)
I rather think Richard is referring to Dwarf French
Beans when he says 'pull the whole plant' as you may find that exceedingly difficult with Runner Beans.
I feel that you should wait as Richard says until the beans have dried on the plant and then pick them and leave in their pods until they really extract themselves. Collect them all up and give them a further period of real drying then select the largest that you have and discard anything that is small. You must make sure that they are really dry before storing otherwise they will go mouldy and be of no use to you.
JB.

[richard p]

jb if you grow runners up a cane wigwam it is possible to remove the whole wigwam into a shed, but only worth doing as a last resort in a cold wet autumn when the beans are rotting on the plants, i usually let one plant mature into seed quite early , my first batch of seed was bagged up 2 weeks ago, i shall gather some more soon and probably sow some of each batch next year. usually end up saving far more than i need.

[cevenol jardin]

Just thought i'd tell you about an experiment i'm doing this year with my runner beans. (it might influence wether you pull up the whole plant or leave a couple of pieds to re-grow). This year i sowed our runner August 17 because it was too hot and dry May June July (In previous years they just didn't grow in that sort of dry heat) so I delayed sowing my runners this year. A bit of a gamble but as I read that runners are bi-annual if they didn't have time to crop before the first frost then my plan was to hack them down to the ground, leaving the frame in place and wait until next spring when, from what i read, they would start re-growing and produce an early crop. Fingers crossed.

I've been a bit lucky so far because we are having a very warm October so the first pods are ready to harvest. I still plan to hack them down and see if they re grow in spring.

Has anyone else got runners to grow the following year?

[Johnboy]

Hi CJ,
I have tried this several times and each time I have ended up putting fresh plants in. I do not think that the old plants have the vibrancy of the previous years crop regrown. I was in Tarn for a year, many years ago, and Runner Beans simply didn't like it there at all. They almost refused to grow yet the French Climbing Varieties went up the poles like rockets and were cropping in no time at all.
I do not know at what altitude you are at and it would be interesting to know. I was at Trebas and cannot remember the altitude but can quite easily find out.
JB.

[cevenol jardin]

Hi Johnboy
Thanks for feedback sounds disappointing though will still try. At least i won't be expecting miracles.

Altitude here is 480m. On southfacing side of the northern part of the Cevennes. You can get a good idea of the land from our website.

Dwarf French beans grow spectacularly well here. But our neighbours (who used to be market gardeners in the valley) say they have given up with climbers as they can't get them to crop well here, so far they have been right. It is a real struggle to get even the french climbers to grow. he beans don't germinate at all when it is too hot and keeping constant moisture is difficult.

Hence the experiment. I figured that it is the dry heat and the wind both at their peak in the summer months and runners being a bit hardier could stand a later sowing.

I've tried growing climbing varieties with corn for shade and protection but it didn't work - could have been spacing not correct or the addition of squash-too much for the soil to support- or the timing.
My plan to grow late seems to be working for the runners this year. They have romped up the poles and started cropping at 8 weeks. Will cut them down at 1st frost and hope for the best next year. They may not have exhausted themselves having had a short season this year?

[sprout]

when you say 'pull up the whole plant' ... I cut beans and peas off at ground level to leave the nitrogen-fixing roots in the soil for the next crop. Am I alone?

[oldherbaceous]

Good evening my dear Sprout, you are not alone by leaving your roots in the ground, i also like to do this with peas and beans.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[John]

I also do this with pea and bean roots, as the books suggest, but I have often wondered if its just a bit garden lore that's been passed down over generations.
How much nitrogen do the nodules in the roots actually contain? Not very much probably! Surely they are not a store of N compounds for the plants but just root outgrowths infected with N fixing bacteria. If they are doing their job I assume that the nitrogen compounds produced in the nodules are passed around to the rest of the plant, especially the large seeds.

John