Kitchen Garden Forum

We have a very modest line of beans, with only a moderate number of runner and French beans (Cobra).

Through neglect, many of them got much bigger than normal before we got round to picking them. However despite us giving them very little attention, watering or feeding, the beans produced have all been virtually stringless & quite tasty.

Has there been anything about the weather this year that might have led to this, or were we just very lucky? Normally, anything showing big lumps where the beans are (runners) or over a centimeter thick (Cobra) would need to be thrown out or risk being very chewy.

Just what I was thinking. My runner beans were started in root trainers and because of the dry weather (!) and various other reasons were etiolated, leggy and feeble looking when I eventually planted them out. I tied the poor things to canes to stop them from just falling down and hoped for the best.
We`ve got our best crop ever!

i've certainly noticed that some of my Cobra this year have grown longer and thicker than I would normally pick them and I too have found them still perfectly edible. I suspect they probably do react to the climate/temperature in some way but the days pass so quickly that I can never remember what the weather was like at certain times of their development to work out what suits them best.

Almost none of my early runner beans pollinated and set and it's really only in the past couple of weeks that they've started to produce any kind of worthwhile crop.

As I was going away in May I just pushed in some dried beans I found in the shed before I went, no idea what they are except there is red seeded, white and a pink one. With virtually no water for 3 months either they are now cropping so well I am giving them away by the bagful.
I'm sure we are all at fault by molly coddling our plants too much.
Runner Beans do like the cooler temperatures to.
Beryl.

I noticed last year too that my runner beans didn't start doing well until mid-late August so might delay sowing them next year. It seems a pity to waste half the flowers which form because they are not pollinated. Having said that, next year's weather will probably provide a completely different set of circumstances.

After a very slow start my Runner Beans are yielding almost 10lb a day from 160 plants. Peas have been magnificent this year and am having a mass pick of Hurst Greenshaft tomorrow. Four 30ft rows and a mass freezing session tomorrow evening. In the afternoon Rugby; it is the first Home Game and its Luctonians v Leicester Tigers. I played Rugby until I was 50 and was by then well and truly over the hill. Now I'm over the mountain!
JB.

Hope you are not intending to find out what's on the other side just yet JB!!!!

Beryl.

Johnboy wrote:In the afternoon Rugby; it is the first Home Game and its Luctonians v Leicester Tigers.

Hi JB, it must be getting near Autumn again

We are having a long weekend in St. Davids (and it's beautiful). However the locals in the pub were not best pleased to see first Osprey's lose to Ulster, then Wales lose their football (whilst England won....).

I've also been getting comparatively heavy yields, Colin, but unlike JB it never occurs to me to weigh them. I have 40 plants in a raised bed. Despite all the stuff I put onto the bed, I still don't think I'm giving them enough food in the soil, and I dare say what I get will seem quite pathetic to JB!

Hi Mike,
It obviously hasn't dawned on you that I weigh them because I sell them!
JB.