runner & climbing beans

[Derbydal]

is it posible to grow runners & climbers horizontal or flat along a string or canes about 2foot off the ground ? as anyone tried it? I think i'll give it a go !
atb Dal.

[nickdub]

Wouldn't French beans be a good deal easier ?

[muck lover]

What nick said. The climbers wouldkeep trying to climb. But dwarf or bush beans would only grow to that height. They are very productive.

[veggiechicken]

How would you pick them?
At 2' high, crawling along strings, the beans would be hanging down and almost on the ground?
Even I'm not that short - or nuts!

[Derbydal]

i'll grow them 3foot off the ground then and if they touch the floor they will win prizes at our local show, my way of thinking is it will be easier for a runner to grow along than fight gravity and grow upwards,i'll give it a go and if it doesn't work I won't tell you !lol atb Dal.

[veggiechicken]

Its not very space efficient!
Your runners will still try to climb upwards, you'll have to fight to keep them down.

[Chestnut]

Could you run the wires diagonally, something like an oblique cordon fruit tree?
If they grow up diagonal wires as well as they grow up half-blown-over canes it should work

[Jungle Jane]

They do grow up continuously & you have to keep wrapping them round the stick,I tried years ago but I don’t remember getting beans from it,maybe I’d had enough of wrapping it round & mine ended up at an angle & didn’t look good. Another time in a pot,I had a few four foot bamboo sticks & I took the runner bean vine up the first bamboo then round to the next bamboo stick,so it made a circle of runner bean plant at the top of the sticks,I thought that’ll be good with all the beans hanging down,I only got a few beans though,but it could be done in the ground,it looks pretty. With constant attention you could make the vine grow anywhere but it’s more space saving growing upwards.

[Potstubsdustbins]

As a runners fan I grow them every year. To get the best production I have 6 that I grow normally and 6/7 that I grow 6ft up canes and then 6ft horizontally along 5mm rope.

Yes they continually try to go vertical but just by wrapping them round the rope they are perfectly happy growing horizontally. As well has increasing yield the vertically hanging ones gives me lovely straight beans ideal for you to show.

[Scarlet]

They climb by following the sun....so they spiral round. I'm not sure how they would spiral round a string running horizontally. You would have to do that everyday.

[Nicos]

Remember that runner beans spiral clockwise(worm's eye view)....as opposed to other beans spiralling anti-clockwise

[Potstubsdustbins]

Yes your right Scarlet unless you manually wrap them round the rope/string it won't work.

[chillithyme]

I tried this a couple of years ago with climbing beans cobra after they reached the top of short 4 foot canes, I had to check on them twice a day as they preferred growing upwards, it was too much work for me

[Potstubsdustbins]

Different for me runners need checking every couple of days and mine are only 10 paces from my back door.

[mothhawk]

Check out Munty frames.