Kitchen Garden Forum

I am interested to know people's thoughts on runners, I have just planted enorma in pots in cold greenhouse, and two weeks ago planted some of an unknown home grown seed in the same way, my idea being that different varieties and different sewing rates will give a successional cropping rate, I then intend to plant them in a very rich bed of home grown compost and manure placed in a deep trench up 8ft rows of canes? When do folk tend to plant out and any thoughts on my sucessional cropping idea?

Compo

I plant my beans out as soon as the last frosts are over here(early June), or if I'm cutting it fine (late May), I plant them out and fleece them just to be sure. I've also sown my beans in stages for successional cropping (I hope), although last year this didn't make a huge difference to the glut in the late summer.

I try for an extra early crop, ideally raise in pots sown 1st April, planted 1st May under temporary cover, with luck I have some beans late June. I don't recommend this for the main crop. A degree of successional sowing is desirable if you want beans when everyone eles have none at the end of the season. For maximum season length keep up the water and pick young, go round several times to try to find all the big ones. I have ended up with a choice between Galaxy and Red Rum, both are noted for fre-setting habit which is especially useful early in the season.
Allan

Hello Compo.

All that compost and manure is a bit of a waste. Legumes are all nitrogen fixers, so don't need feeding, just lots of water. I suspect you'll get lush growth and little fruit if you over feed. So plenty of leaf mould and mulch, would be better.

I like to successionally sow my beans to, some as late as the second week of July. Then I get good crops until the first frost.

Peter

I sow Red Flame this coming weekend in Rootrainers in the cold greenhouse and plant them out towards the end of the month against 8' canes surrounded by fleece like my photograph of the Sweet Peas. I disagree with the going going easy on compost, I use about 5 barrow loads in a 25x2' trench. It doesn't provide an excess of nitrogen but does retain moisture at the roots, essential to success.

Well i have really gone for it, i have planted my first twenty runner bean plants out today.
I bet i will be covering them over quite a bit though.

Kind regards a daring Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

Well PT I hear what you say but we have heavy clay, and several plotholders make a bean trench and get fantastic crops of runners, the reason being (so I am told) is that as long as it is well rotted and the most rotted is uppermost in the trench, the trench holds water, allowing the plants to drink constantly rather than allowing for the ten minute drink everynight, but we will see!!

I have for the last 3years planted my runners up a wigwam and without a bean trench and have had a good crop having to give a lot of them away to use them up.
Have i just been lucky getting a good harvest or is this normal.
Regards Brenjon

Hi Compo, I totally agree with your reasons for having a trench with compost/ manure added to it, this will greatly imrove the soil structure and will also provide the crop with a good water reservoir, they certainly grow much better with a trench than without one in my experience, thanks Steve.

My experience based on many years of growing runners is that, as Peter says, a trench of dung produces lush growth at the expense of crop. However, I don't doubt that there are circumstances-like Compo's heavy clay perhaps-where a manure-filled trench is a lesser of two evils. After all, you still will get a fair crop, but just not a bumper one. I think you want moisture retention, not a highly nitrogenous feed.

Well the trench is not that rich as the compost is well rotted and there is little dung in it, the top section is mixed with soil making it loamy and all the other plotholders have had bumper crops this way, so we will see

comps

Hi PT,
I think that it would be a mistake to assume that because Legumes are well know Nitrogen fixers that they do not need feeding. There comes a time when in fact they could do with a boost. Nitrogen fixing comes late in the life of the plant and is really of more use to a following crop than the existing one.
I personally see nothing untoward with what Compo is doing. I do not view it as a waste of compost rather an investment.
I was told many moons ago that a permenant Bean Bed was all wrong but mine has been going for about 15 years and I still get absolutely superb results. I do not trench, as my father use to, but I dig in a moderate amount of well rotted manure every year.
Just as the canopy is closing on my bean rows I feed with Calcified Sea Weed and they seem to appreciate it.

Upon further reflection, the opinion I expressed was based on a pretty extreme example of nitrogenous feeding-for years I planted them with about two feet of well-rotted horse manure under them. Maybe it was no wonder they grew to look like something out of the Matto Grosso.

In my experience the trench may be one way of assuring the necessary water but I haven't found other means of watering e.g. a leaky pipe on a timer give significantly worse results and is an attractive alternative for those with limited physical power.I can see the wisdom of not going over the top on feed but there is one time that I have found it pays handsomely to give a nitrogenous foliar feed, that is as beans are planted, which helps recovery from the shock of transplanting but it is a passing need. There may be something in a feed at the end of the season but I prefer not to stretch the planting too far so a last batch started in mid-June suffices along with good management of the earlier sowings.The idea of keeping to the same trench is sound inasmuch as that is one way to ensure that the nitrogen-fixing bacteria are already in the soil and don't have to be built up to the same extent. It is a practice widespread in New Zealand where they also practice keeping last years plants but they have a climate somewhat different from ours.
Allan

I've sown mine in Growbags!

Not tried it before, but I heard from an old allotment keeper that this gives bumper crops.

anyone else tried this?