Seed saving - french beans

[multiveg]

Would a climbing French bean cross with Dwarf French Beans?

[nick the grief]

Given half the chance, you know what the french are like

Seriously, not sure MV as sweetpeas are self pollenating before the flowers open so I don't know if they do the same. I'll check the Sue Strickland book.

According to Back Garden Seed saving French beans "nearly always self pollenate" So I think you should be OK providing they aren't grown next to one another - you may get a bit of cross pollenation then.

[multiveg]

I planted what I thought were dwarf french beans -I had sown them in paper pots, and climbing beans as well - I had a marker between them in the tray. Anyway, the one climbing appears to have muscled its way in amongst the dwarf. Anyway, I trained the climbing one up over the arch in the garden so had beans dangling from there. Have checked my seedstock - got plenty of the seed left over from last year - Cherokee Trail of Tears - a lovely dark blue/purple colour. The dwarf ones I think were Royal Red.

The HSL booklet said that french beans could cross, but I wasn't sure if this applied to climbing crossing with dwarf. My son didn't keep the beans separate from the other climbing beans so if I do sow the fresh seed next year (assuming there's any left from winter stews), I guess they'd be easy (ish) to spot when I shell the pods!