Kitchen Garden Forum

I have some 'Or du Rhin' climbing french beans bought this year from the Real Seed Catalogue. They are growing really well and have reached well over 6foot and are lovely and green and healthy. But there are no flowers or any sign of flowers. Does anyone know if this is normal - are they so late that the flowers are yet to come? Or am I just very unlucky and will have no beans on them? I hope it is the former as it would be such a disappointment with all that greenery! I did'nt add any compost or fertiliser or anything as it was in good soil that had not been used for a while. The runner beans growing in the same soil nearby are producing lots of flowers and beans.
Any help please?
Pol

Or du Rhin are a late bean. Give them time and they should produce something. You could try giving them a tomato feed to kick start them.

Ok thanks Angie. I seem to have done something right then - sounds like I may have some beans when other things are finishing. As a newish grower I am still struggling to get the 'what to do when' right!
Pol.

I wonder if when you say your beans are 'well over 6 foot and are lovely and green and healthy' that this might be the cause of the problem. If beans are overfed they will make masses of growth and produce lots of lush leaves - and all this delays flowering.
I wouldn't give them any more feed until after the flowers have appeared and set. When the small beans have started to form would be the time for something like tomato feed. Also as they have reached a good height, pinch out the tops so as to encourage the flowering shoots that form between the leaves and the vine.

John

Hi John
Believe it or not I haven't fed them at all because they looked so good and I was waiting for flowers to appear. Perhaps I should have been feeding them? I gave them some comfrey tea yesterday in between very heavy showers so that should be soaked in now.
I just keep looking and hoping!
Pol

Oh, and yes Johnboy, I will pinch out the tops as well, but I will have to get a stool as I am only 5ft 1in !

Hello again Pol
I still think your soil must be rich in nutrients, particularly N. What was growing there before the beans? Did you manure it heavily during the winter?

John

See my thread in Harvesting Q&A - I've had the same problem with Burro D'Igenoli but I have a few flowers now. Like you giving away Runner Beans planted same day and treated the same.

Hi Pol,
I'll leave the pinching-out bit to John as it was he and not myself that mentioned it.
I always give my Beans a dressing with Calcified Seaweed, which is quite a slow release treatment, as they begin to climb and I feel although Calcified Seaweed you may not be able to get but a light dressing of normal Garden Lime watered in could help your situation. I agree with John that it certainly sounds like that you have an excess of Nitrogen which leads to masses of unwanted foliage and no flowers. I have never treated with Lime this late in the season so I do not really know what the outcome will be but I feel that if a crop is to be had then action is needed very soon.

Sorry, I am getting my 'Johns' mixed up.

John - There was nothing growing there before apart from weeds. When we moved in last September the whole area was completely overgrown with nettles, thistles, bindweed etc. We cleared it and didn't add anything to the soil at all, so whatever is in there is naturally occuring. The runner beans growing about 6 feet away are doing fine, lots of flowers and beans, after a slow start due I think to the hot dry spell.
I pinched out all the tops I could get to and there is now one flower! Hopefully the start of a massive crop!!
Johnboy - I am aiming for organic veg, does this rule out lime?

Pol

Hi Pol,
To be perfectly honest I do not know if Calcified Seaweed is banned or not now accepted as organic or not. Lime most decidedly is accepted as Organic.
I pursue a policy of 'Pragmatic Growing' which means that I use chemicals to the absolute minimum and will only use them if all else will fail. I use Slug Pellets as I consider that there is no other way to control them. I have not used any pesticide this year but I have used Glyphosate (Roundup) but only in non production areas. I very successfully use netting and fleece to give me most of my controls.
I suspect that the greater majority of Forum contributors are of the same mind.

Like Johnboy I am not sure if Calcified seaweed is banned by the Organic rules, but it's use is certainly frowned upon by the ecologists.

Calcified seaweed is not a seaweed, but is our equivalent of coral reefs and harvesting it for fertilisers is unsustainable (we are harvesting it faster than it can grow!) however real seaweed is currently suitainable (so long as the usage does not go shooting up) but you will have to use garden lime as well to correct the pH.

I must admit to buying 2 bags of calcified seedweed before I found out what it really is

Hi Vivianne,
Actually as I have been lead to understand Calcified Seaweed does not form like normal Coral and there are vast amounts of it many feet thick rolling about in quite large areas and it is not inhabited like Coral. It seems that whenever there is something natural to benefit mankind there is always a very small minority who will find an objection to it being used.
Locally we have a calcified stream and we are able to take calcified leaves and twigs and if is was not taken quite serious flooding would occur.
CS is petrified seaweed and this means that it is Seaweed coated with calcium, as the result of small streams that discharge the calcium in quite large quantities into the sea, this then collapses under the weight of calcium and forms a layer on the seabed.
So long as it is available I shall use it.

Hello! Is calcified seaweed the same thing as `seaweed extract` that you have to dilute to use as a liquid feed?
Elderflower

What's It For? — Calcified Seaweed
Calcified Seaweed is a calcareous marine algae resembling coral, known to marine biologists as Lithothamnium Calcareum. It is dredged from the sea bed mainly off the Brittany coast, dried at low temperature and crushed to a fine powder, which is readily assimilated by the soil. It contains about 46% calcium oxide, 5% magnesium oxide; sulphur, copper, iodine and cobalt and some twenty trace elements. It is an ideal soil conditioner and clay breaker, and can be used on lawns, beds and borders as an alternative to lime to correct soil acidity. It is highly favoured by chrysanthemum, sweet pea, dahlia, leek and onion growers. It is non-toxic and safe to use, does not scorch and stores well if kept in a reasonably dry place. 'Seagold' comes with an explanatory pamphlet listing application rates for different circumstances; copies can be obtained from the Trading Hut on Sunday mornings from 10.30am to 12 noon.

The above extract is taken from Sale Horticultural & Allotment Society website
http://www.shas.org.uk/whats-it-for/calcified-seaweed.shtml

Also while googling for Calcified seaweed I came across information that harvesting from the English channel is now banned and Cornish Calcified seaweed has gone out of business because of this. However you never know how reliable the info is on the internet!

Alternatives are now available...just Google Calcified Seaweed and various suppliers of alternatives will come up.