Runner beans

[ardcarp]

Last year was slightly disappointing. However this year's crop just keeps coming. They also seem to grow more quickly, and so you have to pick them young before they go tough. We seem to have enough to feed a family of 20. Fortunately they freeze quite well.

We have been watering them nightly.

[Serial_Apologist]

Last year was slightly disappointing. However this year's crop just keeps coming. They also seem to grow more quickly, and so you have to pick them young before they go tough. We seem to have enough to feed a family of 20. Fortunately they freeze quite well.

We have been watering them nightly.

I miss my ex next door's' annual supply from their allotment down the hill since they moved away oop north several years ago.

As for me I may no longer be a runner, but nobody's yet come up and addressed me as Old Bean!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Runner beans are so named because rival gardeners race their neighbours to try to be first to get to the top of the pole each year.

[oddoneout]

Last year was slightly disappointing. However this year's crop just keeps coming. They also seem to grow more quickly, and so you have to pick them young before they go tough. We seem to have enough to feed a family of 20. Fortunately they freeze quite well.

We have been watering them nightly.

It's a crop that responds well to adequate moisture ie like spuds inputs noticeably affect outputs, one reason I think why the rows grown on the allotments used to get a second wind late in the season - there was still enough warmth in the days and the soil, but the pattern of useful rain in September after a dry August (oh happy days of some sort of pattern to the weather!) gave them a boost that would last well into October.
I was watching some honey bees on my runners the other day as they came in to land at the back of the flower, scout for a convenient drill hole and then, finding none, would fly off again. The assorted bumble bees will go in the front door and so pollinate the flowers, but they have suddenly dropped off in numbers the past couple of weeks. Even with watering, the climbing beans (I've 2 sorts of French in addition to the runners) just aren't producing, and now they and the dwarf beans at their foot are badly infected with a mosaic virus - how or why I've no idea, I've never had it happen before - so I'll need to take them all out. No more beans or even the hope of them, but less watering - not sure that's a good trade off except in the wider sense of not using water being to the common good.
How soon before climate change means runner bean tubers can be overwintered outside, rather than being brought in like dahlias I wonder. I doubt it would cause a change from annual seed raising but those interested in perennial planting might take it up.

[cloughie]

Our runner beans are very prolific this year but as others have said, picked younger as more rapid maturing - already have some frozen - I’ve tried this yearto freeze without blanching - be interesting to see if works!

[ardcarp]

Yes, we know that blanchig is recommended before feezing. But we're just shoving them in as they are (cut up, of course) and hoping for the best.

Even with watering, the climbing beans (I've 2 sorts of French in addition to the runners) just aren't producing, and now they and the dwarf beans at their foot are badly infected with a mosaic virus - how or why I've no idea, I've never had it happen before - so I'll need to take them all out.

That's very sad odders. Never come across the mosaic virus....or even heard of it. It couldn't be caused by watering the foliage could it? The recommended watering regime is to soak the soil in the very early morning before the sun gets hot. I'm afraid that given 'very early morning' is a bit of a downer, we've done it in the late evening. That is supposed to encourage slugs and snails to come out at night and nibble the stems. That could have been (bean?) our problem last year, but this year has been fine. Glad to get most of the crop picked before a hose-pipe ban. We've felt guilty every time we turned the tap on in the past couple of weeks. We're certainly not watering our mainly brown lawn. Lawns do tend to revive themselves when rain finally appears. Is no-mow August a new reality?

[gradus]

I thought I'd let 'em sweat it out under a thick mulch on the allotment as it is too much like hard work carrying 2 gallon watering cans to and from the stand pipe, my neighbours were more resolute and theirs look rudely healthy but at 10 gallons per 15 ft row every two days - we have very free-draining soil - they need to be. All too predictably my runner beans aren't even hobbling along. In the garden I have watered the beans and things are better.

[Cockney Sparrow]

I thought I'd let 'em sweat it out under a thick mulch on the allotment as it is too much like hard work carrying 2 gallon watering cans to and from the stand pipe, my neighbours were more resolute and theirs look rudely healthy but at 10 gallons per 15 ft row every two days - we have very free-draining soil - they need to be. All too predictably my runner beans aren't even hobbling along. In the garden I have watered the beans and things are better.

Gradus - If you have nothing to lose with your allotment beans, one suggestion is to radically reduce the competition for what water there is -cutting down the number of plants markedly, ensuring there are no weeds /competition (I'm sure you have no weeds). I was reading a book by a gardener in Tasmania who advocates this - on the basis that there should be some water at whatever level below* and as drought conditions develop one way to get a crop of any worth is to increase the spacing. (*With the exception of very sandy soils).

I memorised this to use at the next drought, but I'm an ex-allotment holder (and presently on the waiting list for one).

[gurnemanz]

For me a very strange year for runners. I planted out at the end of May but it stayed stubbornly chilly. Slow progress with some dying (most unusual). I duly planted some more to replace them - a different variety, St George, newly bought. We've had some picking but not copious from the first plants which survived. The later St George are looking good - nice red and white flowers - but are yet to crop.

[oddoneout]

Gradus - If you have nothing to lose with your allotment beans, one suggestion is to radically reduce the competition for what water there is -cutting down the number of plants markedly, ensuring there are no weeds /competition (I'm sure you have no weeds). I was reading a book by a gardener in Tasmania who advocates this - on the basis that there should be some water at whatever level below* and as drought conditions develop one way to get a crop of any worth is to increase the spacing. (*With the exception of very sandy soils).

I memorised this to use at the next drought, but I'm an ex-allotment holder (and presently on the waiting list for one).

I've ended up going down the no competition route by default. The tomato beds should have had a selection of salad items covering much of the soil, but I wasn't able to plant them out so the big no-no now of bare soil - mulch was put down originally but no grass cutting and a new compost heap has meant no topping up has been possible. I was aware at a very early stage this year that there was very little 'water at some distance' in the soil as far as the veg were concerned. I'm used to finding the top couple of inches dry but going down 6" and the soil was still bone dry - and set solid - was new. Digging the planting holes for the beans was difficult (and painful for arthritic hands) and I did wonder if there was any point, but having raised the plants and assuming that at some stage there would be rain I carried on.
Ardcarp Re the mosaic virus issue it's doubly puzzling as apart from one small and very shortlived aphid colony on one plant there's no obvious reason why it happened to so many, unless it also spreads by non-vector means. They are all old varieties so possibly more susceptible, but even so... Ah well, at least I have enough saved seed from last year to use next season - and last year's plants were all fine so it shouldn't be carried over - which otherwise might have explained this year's disease.

[Globaltruth]

Almost no runner beans off my plot for the first time I can remember. Most went straight to seed. Also true of the French beans.
I noticed yesterday though a sudden flowering on the runner beans - possibly due to the rain we had a few days ago.

Yesterday was the village vegetable show - the winner for the longest runner was about 6 inches. A miserable skinny tough looking thing.
In the past we have had winners around 19 inches. (modesty forbids etc..)

[ardcarp]

It always amazes me that vegetable shows use size as a winning feature. Who wants a marrow to need a wheelbarrow for transport, and who wants to eat 19" runner beans? Small is beautuful (no modesty needed!).