Kitchen Garden Forum

In the UK, and I assume in all the northern hemisphere runner Beans go up the pole anticlockwise. Do they go clockwise in the southern hemisphere?

Also do climbing French beans go anti clockwise or clockwise?

I'm embarrassed to say I,ve never particularly noticed but I,m sure all my climbing beans all twist anti-clockwise. I wouldn,t mind which way they go as long as they'd avoid their sometimes annoying habit of latching onto their neighbour's pole instead of their own ! They,ve obviously not heard of social distancing !

I would guess its anti clockwise down under as we all are facing the centre of the earth in the same way. Interesting connundrum though muddyboots...

I think you may be confusing growing with the way water goes down the plug hole. We control the water disposal & pretty sure the plants just do what they are wired to do! On saying that, my spot in the Southern hemisphere could never grow a runner bean; or any bean, but had some mega watermelons on the chicken rake out! Don't believe the 'water' bit in front of the melon - we had hot bore water that had to be cooled so they didn't get much! I'm still waiting to taste a better melon as any available are not treated mean but 'made perfect' with irrigation!

That's interesting about Melon flavour Westi. Considering they mostly consist of water I imagined that copious irrigation would have been necessary for them to thrive but can imagine too, that this would dilute what very mild flavour it does possess.
The same thing happens, of course, if you "over dilute" your lockdown gin and tonic !!

I suspect it is more to do with temperature and being fully ripe before being picked. I had a couple of periods working at a factory in North Carolina and the water melons there were beautiful, not worth eating in this country.

Compo wrote:I would guess its anti clockwise down under as we all are facing the centre of the earth in the same way. Interesting connundrum though muddyboots...

Your probably right Compo but don't water go down drains the opposite ways in the different hemispheres!

Westi Yes water was on my mind

I will pm my friend on FB to check. She is near Adelaide so 1,000's of miles from where I was in QLD & way cooler, so may have been more successful than me!