Kitchen Garden Forum

Johnboy - I think I'm going to try your method of germinating climbing beans this year. You put me onto the parsnip/tissue germinating tip last year and I'm doing it again this year. I'll start looking around for some corrugated cardboard packaging which should enable me to line the beans up without them continually rolling over. It wouldn't have occurred me to try this with beans although when I now think back into the mists of time at my primary school I recall that in Nature Lessons, we used to watch a runner bean grow in a jam jar by inserting it in between the glass and a inner wrapping of blotting paper. That dates me, doesn't it??

Good Evening Johnboy,

Thank you for sharing your advice, I will try and give it a go aswell this year.

Good Evening Primrose,

They are still sowing beans at primary schools in the same way!! I was asked for some advice from a friend who's son had brought one home, as what to do with it.

done digging - it's a rather sad reflection on modern day food sourcing that so few people actually seem to have seen runner beans growing that they don't know that you plant it and let it run up a cane, isn't it?

Colin_M wrote:Despite the best advice of others above, I currently have some dwarf Borlotti beans that are around 5" high and have been sat outside for the last week. I will plant them under fleece and appreciate this is taking a bit of a risk, but I think I'm stuck with this now

Colin

I hope you have some seed left over for resowing if necessary
My borlotti are still safe in the packet and will stay there for a while yet. We have frost this morning and I wouldn't like to be looking after 5inch high beans

alan refail wrote:I hope you have some seed left over for resowing if necessary
My borlotti are still safe in the packet and will stay there for a while yet. We have frost this morning and I wouldn't like to be looking after 5inch high beans

Hi Alan, I actually bought two varieties - one dwarf (sold as an early variety) and the other climbing. It's the former that under way - just in trays in our back garden at the moment.

Whilst we haven't had any frost in the last 2-3 weeks in Bristol, I appreciate the risk. However since I'm already committed, I'm going to give it a go, even if they end up acting as green manure. I assume that leaving them in their trays will run the risk of them getting pot-bound and held back anyway??

It's the climbing Borlottis I'm really interested in and they won't go in for a while.

Thanks for all your tips folks.....much appreciated.

Well, I went to the lottie this afternoon and had a good poke around in the pots. There were a few where the bean had disappeared but 90% of the pots had beans germinating in them. They were deeper in the pots than I thought, or somethings dragged them down further.

So, i'll just leave them alone and see what happens

Colin

You'll have your borlotti, then, one way or another
Talking of frost, we had a frost yesterday morning and it's the same again today. And only a mile from the sea at that

Lizzie

Your beans have probably burrowed deeper looking for the winter duvet

I"m going to grow Climbing French beans(Cobra) and my sister will grow Runner beans.
What shape should the frame be?Should it be the bog standard row of inverted "V"s" as for Runner beans,a Teepee,or bean between posts or something else?

Snooky, I think the structure depends on how much space you've got available. I have very little so grow my climbing French & Runner beans up single poles right in front of the fence in a narrowish border and squeeze other things round the base like lettuces and cucumbers.
The problem with a tepee is that if you grow too many beans they run out of space near the top of the "wigwam" and can get tangled up together so it's not always easy to see all the beans when they need to be picked but sometimes a wigwam will cast less of a shadow than a double row of beans so it's a matter of horses for courses. If you're growing them in a long vegetable patch, grow them at the far end so that everything else is in front and isn't blocked out of the sunlight. As long as the soil is kept nice and moist and is well manured you should get a good crop either method.

Primrose,thanks for the reply.I have a space earmarked for the beans on the allotment so it looks as if I can use the same type of rig which I would have used if I going to grow Runner beans.Once again,thanks.