Full of Beans 2019

[Penellype]

I bought 2 pkts fresh beans yesterday, Firestorm and Stardust, as only half my self-saved have germinated. Firestorm because they are reliable producers and Stardust, a new one to me, because the blurb on the packet sounded just what I wanted. I was most surprised to find the bean seeds were white, never seen that in a runner before. I, too, dislike stringy starchy runners.

I think the seeds are white because they are a french/runner cross. I have grown Firestorm too, but find them a little coarser than Stardust.

[1Bee]

Cobra seeds are tucked up in damp kitchen paper to chit.

Do you ever dream that one year all the ground will be ready before the plants need to go in?! Still need to cultivate the bean bed and erect supports....

[Thelma Sanders]

Do you ever dream that one year all the ground will be ready before the plants need to go in?! Still need to cultivate the bean bed and erect supports....

It's only ever dream for me

[Jungle Jane]

My ground is ready but there’s hardly any of it so it’s easy I haven’t sowed any beans yet,Ive hardly been doing anything but I’m painting my daughters room chic shadow shade of grey it’s quite nice. It’s a bit cold & windy so I might sow around first week of May & I’ll do a second sowing for a long harvest,a few people on here years ago said about putting a seed in when you plant the plants & they’ll flower later,easy to do

[Marmande]

We have a tiny garden but we all love beans so I've always grown as many as I can fit in! I'll have 2 wigwams in raised beds, 2 more in pots plus random canes where I can fit them in

This year I've sown (last week) Cobra, Blue Lake, Goldfield and Crosse Violette. I've never grown the last two but Cobra and BL have always been brilliant, and I've had some absolutely massive beans from Cobra - literally about a foot long!

I've also sown 2 types of runner bean (White Lady and Firestorm, both new types as Scarlet Emperor were a bit so-so for me last year). And also borlotti beans. I grew these last year but stupidly chose a dwarf variety, so I'm growing a climbing borlotti this year in the hope that I'll have 5 times as many beans! We are some as shelly beans (thanks for the terminology) and they were absolutely delicious

[Marmande]

Is anyone growing dwarf beans, by the way? If so, is there a benefit that I haven't grasped? Last year I grew Purple Tepee, Safari and Ferrari, as well as dwarf Borlotti beans. I grew them all in containers and they did mature much more quickly than the climbing beans. They were smaller than my climbing beans but probably more tender, admittedly. But they all ripened at the same time (within a week or two, anyway), and once we'd had a couple of meals from a container, they were all gone. Obviously, successional sowing is the answer to this but that would have required me to have even more containers at the go, at different stages. So are dwarf beans not suitable for people with really limited space, or am I missing something?

[Snoop Puss]

^Marmande, I grow dwarf beans and usually pick over quite a long period of time. Maybe it was something about the conditions or the particular variety. Some will produce all at once, the benefit being that they can then be preserved all at once. If that isn't the case with the varieties you grew, maybe they needed more feed. Not nitrogen (good for leaves) but P and K (good for fruit).

I've gone a bit mad on beans this year. Not entirely my fault, honest... OK, mostly my fault.

Dwarf beans: Nautica (green, round), Sonesta (yellow, round) and Merveille de Piedmonte (purple speckles or splotches, go yellowish on cooking, fat and lumpy, like me, come to think of it; got really high hopes for these as years and years ago, I had a plateful of beans in France and have been trying to identify them ever since [yes, they were that good] and I'm hoping they were these).

Climbers: Algarve (flat, green) and a free packet of three different varieties and colours (Melissa [purple version], Ramdor (described in French as butter] and Fortex [green] - I don't know anything about any of these). I wouldn't ordinarily grow climbers as it's too windy for them to do well here. But I could eat beans every day, so anything that grows is welcome.

I've also got some Cosse Violette and might sow some of those too.

[Small pumpkin]

I only grow dwarf French beans because the climbing ones are incredibly sensitive to windy conditions.
I've never managed to grow a straight French bean pod until I started growing dwarfs.

[Small pumpkin]

Question bean lovers.
Why do some of mine grow headless?

[veggiechicken]

I'm thinking about sowing/planting a DFB and a CFB together - same module - same bean stick.
My hope would be that the DFB would crop before the CFB, leaving the CFB to carry on cropping afterwards.
I thave ried it with mangetout of all heights sown together and it did work, after a fashion! Peas need more scrambling room but beans are content with a stick/string so I think they may be more controllable.

[veggiechicken]

Question bean lovers.
Why do some of mine grow headless?

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Maybe bean seed fly?
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=884

[1Bee]

I loathe DFBs, but that's just me. They lay their pods on the ground and rot and get slugged and picking them is a nightmare on the back and I felt I needed 3 hands, one to rummage, one to hold and one to pull... Plus when I cleared the bed I found loads I'd missed because I find it so awkward...

But I expect I got it all wrong.

[Small pumpkin]

Thank VC. I'd never heard of that little pest before.

[veggiechicken]

Nor me but I've had "blind" beans in the past too - so I goggled.

[SarrissUK]

I've not heard of that pest either - I've been lucky and never really had any pests with my beans. Never had them headless either as far as I'm aware.

I've never grown anything for the beans before, other than borlotti, so this year is really exciting for me. Cosse violette is supposed to produce some very flavourful beans, and I'm trying loads others.