Cherokee Trail of Tears climbing bean

[Potstubsdustbins]

I only grow runners but have had a better than average year. Total yield was 98lb from 18 plants.

Colin

[northepaul]

My runners and broadies were great, just French types came to nothing.....

[singleseeder]

Could be many different things. Can you tell us how & when you sowed, where you kept the seedlings?

Two Sheds, I was a bit rubbish this year with record keeping. All I can remember is that the dwarf yellow beans were sown in cardboard cups (wombled from work) and then put out late June. It is more than possible they were kept in the cups too long or not hardened off long enough. It was a chaotic year with work on the house.

Note to self - better record keeping next year.

[ladylottie]

Broad Beans were fantastic (freezer is stuffed full), Dwarf French Beans are cropping very well (usually they are rubbish) but my Climbing French Beans and Runner Beans are hopeless this year. Still getting enough for dinners though.

[Alison]

The fact that so many of us have had varied results from different crops makes me more than ever convinced of my practice of growing a wide range of things as it's rare everything will work or that everything will fail so if you sow lots of variety you always have sufficient.

[BroadRipple]

mine (borlotti, climbing, runner) have all been fairly pathetic - very disappointing but, compared to broad beans, still so easy to grow I'm going to keep trying.
Colin PotsTubs, what WILL you do with that many broad beans? can you knit them?

[Two_Sheds]

growing a wide range of things as it's rare everything will work or that everything will fail so if you sow lots of variety you always have sufficient.

Or as Snadger says "diversify and prosper"

what WILL you do with that many broad beans?

Broad bean hummous, broad bean salad, put them in soups & stews, broad bean wine (actually scratch that last one, it's yucky)

[BroadRipple]

sorry not concentrating - i meant RUNNER beans. broad beans...hard to grow, yummy to eat every which way. runner beans...maybe the opposite?

[Two_Sheds]

Runner beans: let them get big and seedy, eat the seeds as butter beans

[Potstubsdustbins]

I now have enough in the freezer to last me till I start picking fresh again next year.


Colin

[StephenH]

Broad beans are nice, but I'm not growing them in the future because the yield per unit area of ground is much too small. From now on, it's climbing runners and Frenchies only.

[Two_Sheds]

Broad beans are nice, but I'm not growing them in the future because the yield per unit area of ground is much too small.

but you can be picking them before the Frenchies have even been sown

[StephenH]

but you can be picking them before the Frenchies have even been sown

True, but there are other, higher-yielding things I can be eating then - including salted runners and frenchies from last year.

[Kittypickle]

I grew them this year and have had loads. Said to DH that reason for name is the Cherokees had do many of the flipping things they didn't know what to do with them !

At the moment I'm letting them grow in their pods and will dry some. I sowed direct , several to a pole, didn't water and they grew . My plot was well manured by pig that I think helps. They didn't do quite as well as my purple climbing French bean but that was just ridiculous.

[alex-adam]

Thanks for all the responses. - Just to put my experience this season into perspective - I have Runner Beans, variety St. George, very good crop and still going strong, first time I tried these, not very impressed with the flavour though. I will go back to Scarlet Emperor or may try Moonlight which seems to have a very good reputation. My climbing Blue Lake were aslo very bountiful, but finished now and I also have Bridgwater climbing bean, rather mediocre crop but fabulous taste.

Thanks again to all respondents.

a-a