Page 1 of 1
Height of Climbing French Bean - Blauhilde
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 9:51 am
by GaGa
Hi all,
I ordered some short-ish Climbing French Beans to climb up my sweetcorn, but they were out of stock, so the suppliers sent some "Blauhilde" dark blue full-size Climbing FBs instead. Fair enough, no problem.
As they're now hardened off, and need to go outside - does anyone know how tall Blauhilde will get? Will they grow taller than my sweetcorn as I suspect? Should I just treat them like runner beans and give them a tall bean pole to climb up instead of the sweetcorn? Couldn't find anything useful about height on line.
Thanks,
GaGa.
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 1:34 pm
by Belinda
Looks like it's definitely bean poles - this site say six to eight feet tall.
http://zipcodezoo.com/Plants/P/Phaseolu ... lde%60.asp
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 4:58 pm
by richard p
has anyone successfully got beans to climb sweetcorn in the uk?, ive allways found the beans are way ahead of the sweetcorn heightwise. it seems silly to plant more beans later on just so they can go up the corn .
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 8:19 pm
by Tigger
Same here Richard p - I love the idea but the beans are always way ahead of the corn.
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 9:43 pm
by John
I grew some blue climbing french beans several years ago and they needed full height bean sticks. Can't remember if they were 'Blauhilde'. They tasted fine but they cooked to a green colour so the blue pods thing was just a novelty.
Although they might be a pretty novelty in the veg garden, generally I can't see much point in these unusually coloured vegetables because, on cooking, they either return to the natural colour or go to some unappealing strange brown as with chard 'Bright Lights'. Exception of course are those where the coloured leaves are eaten raw and they are worthwhile.
John
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 10:19 pm
by richard p
i find the purple beans a bit easie to ind in the foliage, try steaming the chard it retains the colour better
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 9:09 am
by GaGa
Good stuff,
great info folks thanks. Bean poles it is then!
Gg.
Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 2:54 pm
by Primrose
My Blauhilde climbing French Beans grew between 6 - 8 feet last summer. You will definitely need poles. And if we have a very hot summer, the beans, being self-fertile, will set without needing to be fertilised by bees so you won't have the problem, like runner beans, of getting lots of flowers with no beans to follow.