Runner Beans

[John P]

Evening all

I have about 20 runner bean plants, all growing very well. About 8’ high now up canes, lovely foliage and heaps of red flowers, but when the flowers drop, there are zero signs of beans forming. I have read that it might be lack of pollinators - and we certainly haven’t seen any bees this season so far. I also wondered if it might be that the bean seeds were ones I saved from last year? I bought the seeds last year and they did extremely well, so much so I saved and dried a full jar of bean seeds. Which I re-sowed this year. They took well and have grown but, no fruit.

Any ideas or suggestions? Anyone else having issues with runner beans this year?

Many thanks!

[Plot70]

My runner beans have been slow to set but I have got one or two pods that are set now.
There were plenty of early mining bees earlier in the year and the gooseberries have set well.
Now there are very few bumble bees on some sprawling comfrey that must have been over to the runner beans.
The French climbers are doing a bit better even though they lost some leaves to leaf cutter bees before something managed to get the pods to start setting.

[John P]

Thank you…..I shall live in hope!

[mothhawk]

The nights have been very warm recently. Beans need cool nights, 10 - 15C, to encourage the pollen to germinate. Lack of water will also make flowers drop, so keep them well watered in dry weather, and mulch around them to conserve moisture. CFB are not so fussy, and the newer Firestorm and Moonlight types of runner that are crossed with CFB also seem to set better in the heat.

[Plot70]

Mine have finally started setting pods.
They have been insanely slow but there is a couple of pods that have stayed on at last.

[Containergardener]

Mine are jut getting up their canes and starting to flower 😀