Time to get your beans in folks. (Runner Beans)

Member Name: kimking

Product:	Runner Beans
Date:	19/04/04 (3000 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, more goodness, taste better

Disadvantages: digging , weeding, watering

Well it?s that time of year again, time to get busy in the garden digging, weeding, sowing, planting and hoeing to mention but a few things. I only have a very small back garden so it?s up to me to make the best of the space provided as I do love fresh veggies straight from the garden mmm there?s nothing better, except chocolate of course.

This week I?ve been sowing some of my favourites, the good old runner bean. When you first start off growing these you will need to buy a packet of seeds, they are readily available from loads of places from garden centres to supermarkets, after your first year simply allow one of your plants to go to seed at the end of harvesting and you?ll have your seeds for next years crop, this way you can really save money.

You can start sowing from April through to mid June, what I normally do is sow five beans at two to three weekly intervals over that time so I have a longer lasting crop with nice tender young beans all though out the season. You can start the off in little pots and keep them in a green house or on the window sill or as long as the last frost has gone you can plant them straight into the ground.

When planting out you should space them approximately 2 inches deep and 6 ? 9 inches apart, Water them as soon as you have planted them and then frequently throughout their growing season.

Once your little plants start growing you need to support their stems by providing them with something like a tall bamboo cane on which they can grow up by wrapping their selves around, you will need to help the young seedlings to grip the cane by gently wrapping them around the bottom of the cane. Once this is done they need little attention except regular watering through out the season.

When the plants reach about six feet tall it is best to nip off the top of the plant to stop it growing too tall, it will then bush out a litt
le, this makes it easier to pick the beans when they are grown. The beans will start to flower after a few weeks with bright a scarlet small flower although you can get verities with white, pink or even red and white flowers, these will drop off if a bee or something does not pollinate it but don?t worry it will simply grow more flowers. If it does get pollinated the flower will wilt and soon you will see a tiny bean start to grow, these can be picked when ever you feel they are ready for you.

There are not too many diseases that will affect the plants but the main one is a condition called Anthracnose, it causes brown shrunken spots to appear on the pods and leaves get brown patches on them both of which may turn pink if left and can even kill the plant. The best treatment for this is to lift and destroy all the affected plants and spray any remaining ones with something like Benlate which you can buy in most garden centres. In order to try to prevent this it is best to rotate the crops position in the garden each year and you can dust the seeds with benlate before planting.

When picked young these beans are lovely and tender but if left on the plant to long will become stringy and tuff. Once picked they can be sliced using a propose bean slicer which you can buy almost anywhere and then be lightly boiled, steamed used in stir fry?s etc.

After slicing you can blanch them slightly and then freeze them but I find they go soggy when they are cooked, the best way to enjoy them is picked young and eaten fresh from the plant mmm lovely.

Thanks for reading.

Kim.

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