Compost for runners

[Marbles1974]

Hello everyone,

I'm new here. First post on this forum so please be gentle with me

I've recently been bitten by the gardening bug and I'm going to be planting out runner beans in containers. I'm a little bit confused as to what compost I should use for this as I'm reading so many different things online.

Do you think I should be using a vegetable specific compost or, as seems to be recommended quite a bit, should I just use a general purpose compost? For example, I do have a load of Westland multi-purpose compost (with added John Innes). Should I use that and then look to add something like Fish, Blood and Bone?

Quite a newbie question, as it were, but a little overwhelmed with the conflicting information that I've been reading online.

Any help that you might be able to provide would be very much appreciated.

All the best,
Marbles1974

[nickdub]

Any compost will be fine - I'd go for the cheapest as you ideally need a really good depth say 15" or more - if you have any decent top soil available from your garden, building site or wherever I'd mix a bit of that in too. Runner beans need feeding and if grown in the ground will send roots down a long way , as yours will be in containers you'll need to mix some sort of liquid feed up with water as the plants get bigger - may be a tomato style liquid feed would be easiest . Keep an eye open for slugs when the the plants are small.

[fishpond]

Hello everyone,

I'm new here. First post on this forum so please be gentle with me

I've recently been bitten by the gardening bug and I'm going to be planting out runner beans in containers. I'm a little bit confused as to what compost I should use for this as I'm reading so many different things online.

Do you think I should be using a vegetable specific compost or, as seems to be recommended quite a bit, should I just use a general purpose compost? For example, I do have a load of Westland multi-purpose compost (with added John Innes). Should I use that and then look to add something like Fish, Blood and Bone?

Quite a newbie question, as it were, but a little overwhelmed with the conflicting information that I've been reading online.

Any help that you might be able to provide would be very much appreciated.

All the best,
Marbles1974

That will be good for most if not all veg.

[MyWifesBrassicas]

Welcome.
I'd go with that, cheapest compost is always good for me when growing beans. local garden centre or large DIY store, but best of all is home produced, start making some compost for next year

[Snoop Puss]

Hello Marbles, no extra advice to offer in addition to Nickdub's excellent suggestions. But just wanted to say hello and welcome. Lots of friendly folk here willing to share their knowledge and (perhaps dubious) sense of humour.

Hope to see you around here and looking forward to hearing more about your gardening.

[SarrissUK]

Hi and welcome Marbles!

[Small pumpkin]

Welcome to the vine
Congratulations on catching the bug .
As has already been said use what ever compost you have to hand.
The only bit of advice I can give you is don't get to wrapped up in all the technicals. Experiment, play around with things and have fun .

[Jimny14]

Welcome, I'll add my bit of advice, it's very similar to above. Some compost (anything available), don't be tempted to crowd plants, they'll yield better with space, water well (not little and often, but more deeply and less often so it gets right down to the roots), most of all enjoy it and try to remember your mistakes as they're great learning opportunities

[Greenleaves]

Welcome to the vine, enjoy the benefits of the advice and humour

As already said...any compost with plenty water and an occasional feed

[Penellype]

Hi Marbles and welcome.

Nothing to add to the compost advice, just a note about supporting runner beans. They grow very tall and become quite top heavy so need good strong supports. If you use canes in the pot for them to climb up I recommend tying the whole thing to either a stake in the ground or something solid, otherwise you risk the whole pot blowing over if it is windy.

[Miss Mousetrousers]

Welcome to this great forum! No matter how long we've been growing things there's always something to learn. As said, don't get too involved in the different ways of growing beans as it will give you a headache! Keep it simple, get some decent compost and mix it with J. Innes No. 3 so it won't dry out as fast and keep a wary eye out for those slugs and snails.

[1Bee]

Welcome! I love runners, they grow so fast and look lovely. Plenty of good advice here - good luck!

[Marbles1974]

Thanks everyone for the lovely warm welcome and the advice. Looking forward to getting stuck into all of this. Thanks again.

[Vince G]

Something to hold water within the compost would be useful, as has been pointed out here, runners are hungry thirsty plants. So some bulky rotted manure is good or if like me you rake a lot of moss out of your lawns, this is good too. I grow them in the ground in the allotment and bury moss about a foot down.

Welcome to the vine!!