Too late for more beans?

[Muppet194]

I was growing my runner beans up one side of my A frame and sweet peas up the other, the beans up the back and the sweet peas up the front and it looked blooming beautiful. I tend to go to the lotty around 4 times a week and was bringing home a bunch of sweet peas each time. Disaster struck when my car broke down and I didnt get there for a week and a half cos the flowers have all finished and gone to seed as they werent picked. I pulled them all out yesterday but have half a frame empty now. Any ideas what I can grow up it at this late stage? Will more runners have time to do anything before the end of the season? Or would french beans be quicker?

[Dorothy rouse]

Wonder if the GC's might have any bean plants left? That would give you a bit of a start.

[Bohobumble]

I planted some haricot/French/runner beans a week ago and dropped a seed into each of the planting hole, I don't think it's too late to grow, just keep them watered in this weather and they'll shoot up.

I'm in bucks but the screen thingy on my phone is making it awful to see most information anymore, but so long as you're not much farther north you should be right.

[Penellype]

Worth trying some seeds atarted in pots indoors to give them a head start. I don't know which would be quicker - runners or frenchies, but you could try some of both. How well they crop may well depend on the time of the first frosts, so if we have a warm autumn you could still get a decent crop.

[Thelma Sanders]

Here, French beans are quicker to harvest than runners ;

I've just started some

[fishpond]

This year I have found Haricots quickest followed by runners, followed by French a week or so later.

[maverick451]

Last year I planted beans late July after constructing a new raised bed.

The french bean cobra did exceptionally well, to be honest the runners didnt really come to much.

[skeggijon]

At this time of year with warm soil, Im sure they'd come on pretty quickly as long as you give them plenty of water

[Muppet194]

Thanks guys, I wont have any cross pollination issues growing different beans up the same frame will I?

[Martin H]

No, they will be fine unless you want to save seed to grow next year. Even then, frenchies won't cross with runners.

[CaptainBurrito]

I got an email from DT brown the other day about autumn planting runner beans which they sell as plants. I get runner beans when they are reduced to pennies at the supermarket so i never grow them. In future maybe you could stagger some plants.

[Thelma Sanders]

No, they will be fine unless you want to save seed to grow next year. Even then, frenchies won't cross with runners.

If French beans can't cross with runners, how did we get the new self pollinating runner beans like Firestorm and Moonlight which are crosses between the two.

[Martin H]

If French beans can't cross with runners, how did we get the new self pollinating runner beans like Firestorm and Moonlight which are crosses between the two.

I was oversimplifying, sorry. They don't normally cross in ordinary garden conditions. Hybridizers are clever.

[Thelma Sanders]

I was also oversimplifying as well, cos when I grew runner beans and Cosse Violette (Purple French beans) on the same frame the plants grown from saved seed gave me some patchy purple runner bean pods and some with normal green pods, but with the purple flowers of the Frenchies

It seems to be more difficult for the runners to pollinate the French beans, rather than the other way around as the French beans continued unchanged

[muddled]

According to my MOM gift seed saving book french beans "nearly always self-pollinate" so can be grown side by side (presumably with other french beans)

Runners, on the other hand, "can self-pollinate, but only with outside help" (ie bees) and commercial growers seperate varieties by up 1,000m.


Unfortunately, the book doesn't mention french/runner crossing but I think that unless you particularly want to save the runner seed you'll be fine.