Growing Runner Beans

Growing runner beans can be rewarding and in terms of crop per square yard they are up there with the best as they are prolific if you get it right, and get it wrong and you get poor yields and once again we will forget the book and use my experience as this is again, once proven. Runner beans are climbers and come in many varieties and the traditional stringy beans still exist as do stringless types and even French beans and they are so easily grown they can ge grown directly in the ground or in containers and some trailing varieties now exist.

Contrary to what the books tell you; preparing your ground begins the previous Autumn and for prolific cropping this needs to be right and getting it right involves slightly more work but the rewards speak for themselves.

Dig a trench 3’ (900mm) deep and 3’ (900mm wide) and line the bottom with an old carpet, cover the carpet with about 9” (825mm) of well rotted manure and leave open to the winter, as you get newspapers you throw them on top of the muck and the newspaper absorbs many of the nutrients and the cold kills off any nasties. Mix well rotted muck and compost in equal parts and add a pinch of lime per mix, I have a concrete mixer and I use this and mix enough until you have 12” (300mm) of the mixture on top of your newspaper and cover with ordinary soil back to ground level; there is no rush at this stage as preparing your trench can take weeks.

Indoor Grown – Take a 3” (75mm) pot and fill with seed compost and make a hole about 2” (50mm) deep in the middle and drop your seed in and cover with compost and water well and ensure they stay damp and don’t dry out and they germinate in around 1 week as long as the temperature is above 12°C and ideally between 12° - 18°C they will germinate.

Outdoor Grown – Take your container and treat the container in exactly the same way you do your trench and ensure all frosts have passed as frost kills runner beans; built a wigwam of canes with the bottoms around 6” (150mm) apart and tie at the top to form your wigwam and plant a seed 2” (50mm) deep at the bottom of each cane, water well and don’t allow them to dry out and stand in a sunny spot.

Grow in the ground – wait until all frosts have passed and the soil temperature is above 12°C and plant directly into rich soil and ensure it stays moist, you can warm the soil by covering with polythene sheets and letting this trap the heat to warm it up.

Prepare your supports as most varieties are climbers and they really are the 3D plants as they take up little ground space and a lot of air space, mark two lines 30” (750mm) apart over your prepared trench and get canes of 6’-8’ long and place one on your back line and one on your front line and where they cross near the top, tie them to form tour first poles, repeat at the other end. Now you have both ends you tie enough canes together to reach both ends and this is your top or ridge cane and you use this to give your line and you set pairs of canes crossed and tied to your ridge pole at about 8” (200mm) centres and do this until you have completed the whole row and you are now ready for your plants. When the risk of frosts have passed and you have hardened your plants off you can plant them next to your canes and begin with the back first and plant them, next plant the front plants next to the canes and loosely tie them to the canes to support them and seriously water the trench and surrounding area as they need to be kept moist which is important as they also love full sun. When they reach the top of your canes nip the growing tip out to stop them growing and putting all their energy into growing foliage as they need their energy for growing beans.

Water about every 3 days and use around 1 gallon (4.5L) of water per square yard/square metre and ensure the ground stays moist as they are thirsty plants and if they need more water than use more water and remember the biggest problem with runner beans is that people let them dry out which seriously dents their yields or kills them altogether. Container grown plants generally use smaller varieties and have smaller yields but containers have a tendency to dry out quicker to watch these carefully and avoid it.

When the flowers form in early Summer it is time to double your water and up this from 1 gallon (4.5L) to 2 gallons (10L) per square yard/square metre and it is time to add a feed and as I use my own I simply feed every second watering or about once per week.

I make comfrey feed by picking comfrey and putting it into a large barrel until it is half full and top up with water, I put a mesh into the barrel and put a brick on top of it to hold the comfrey down.
My second feed is made from banana skins and I cut three skins up finely and put them into a 2L bottle and top up with water and nature does the rest; both are ready after about 3 weeks but leave them longer for a better feed.

I have a watering can marked in litres an I fill with 10 litres of water and to this I add one cap full of banana feed and I have a small ladle so I add a ladle of comfrey to it and I get a mixture of comfrey and banana skin feed which works well for my soil.

As the beans begin to form you watch them and pick at about 6-8” (150-200mm) long and the more you pick the more crop you will get as they regenerate themselves and at about this length the stringy beans are not stringy and more flowers form which means more beans.
Never let the beans mature as if they do they stop the flowers from growing and you need more flowers for more beans and the only time you let them mature is for your seed beans for next year at the end of the growing season.
Let some beans mature by NOT touching them and by NOT growing a hybrid bean and they will mature and you will see the bean inside get larger and larger, they will start to turn yellow and eventually brown and if you pick the beans between yellow and brown the seeds will me matured and ready. Pick the beans and remove the actual beans from inside the pod and stand them somewhere warm and airy to dry out and once dried put them into a container and put the container in the fridge for 2=3 weeks as this kills off any eggs which may attach themselves to the seed and you can put them into a container for next year’s beans.

My beans are decades old and the originals over 40 years ago were not hybrid beans and as I seed them every year and they have lasted well and have been grown in America, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and Spain as once you have a non hybrid bean you can seed them for decades and give them to friends.

Runner beans freeze very well and from a small plot you can get a year’s runner beans and more as long as you pick, blanche, and freeze and they are a versatile vegetable which most people can grow.