runner beans

There are no toxins in runner beans and you can eat them raw. I think you're getting confused with kidney beans that need a lot of boiling (unless you buy them tinned).

 

Scrungee, I apologise for being imprecise .

There are minute traces of phytohaemagglutinin in runner beans but they are not in sufficient quantity in the fresh beans to affect you adversely. Whereas kidney beans contain considerably more of the toxin.

The toxin is mainly contained in the bean and not the flesh. If you dry the bean and discard the flesh you will have concentrated the degree of toxicity but the amount of boiling (or soaking) required to bring the bean to edible condition would then have reduced the toxin back down to just a trace.

Whilst runnerbeans are still in fresh and not dried condition they are not toxic (even if you eat half a pound a day - as Mrs Shiney and I do) and only need cooking sufficient to your individual taste. We drop our sliced beans into boiling water, return it to a boil and cook for two minutes. Delicious.

Sorry to hear your crop has been a failure this year. There have been some very diverse results from runners this year, supposedly from the cool start to the growing season and the overabundance of gastropods.

I always start mine off under cover and don't plant them out until they have reached at least a foot in height. This usually helps them survive the slugs and snails. I also grow a lot of spares so that I can replace any that are eaten. We had a bad attack of the slugs and lost about 30 plants but their replacements survived.

We had a slightly slower start to the season because of the weather but the beans soon caught up. I experimented with a different way of growing them this year and have had an increased yield of approx 40% (see this thread- http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/ive-bean-meaning-to-start-this-years-thread.45032/)

I've grown a control group so that I can test the results against them . My best week I picked just over 100lb but it was down to 50lb this week. They didn't like the couple of cold nights and positively hate this very hot weather.

 

Hi Freddy, yes, I have found a number of differences between the varieties - but I'm a bit of a foody . I suppose it's a bit like wine experts that can tell, on a blind tasting, exactly what the wine is.

With beans I have been able to tell the difference in sweetness, texture and the fresh flavourness (a new word ). All these things are affected by the weather and the speed at which they grow so, from a practical point of view, I've reduced my choice down to one variety that's a very good all rounder that crops well despite adverse weather conditions.

The people that buy my beans seem to agree that the ones I sell (Polestar) are the best they have tasted. So I don't grow other varieties any more except when I'm trialing new varieties.

 

It's a good choice Kaz but remember that, although they say they (and others) are stringless, there is no such thing. What ot really means is that as long as you don't leave them on the plant too long, they're stringless. Picking them at the right (normal) time will result in stringless beans.

 

I always buy bean seeds. I can't afford for them not to come true if I use my own. It also allows me to keep picking them till the frost comes.

I plant about 500 seeds and sell about 300 plants.

 

Kristen, we only grow our seed in the greenhouse and plant out when they have reached a suitable stage. They don't always get planted out on time as other things sometime intervene, but the principle is there.

I agree with you that it's not particularly necessary to do that but it would give you extra plants if you have the spare beans. We always plant two plants per cane and sow them together in the greenhouse. By default, we get some later ones as we sow the beans at different times to replace those eaten by slugs and to fulfil orders.

We normally recommend to people that they don't plant their beans out until after our Open Day so they can come and collect them when we open but some of them want them earlier. We plant about 50 out earlier than that but we have others growing just in case a late frost gets them.

 

I'm sorry, I can't help you there .

The leaves on all our plants are also completely covered with tiny spots that that I can't tell whther they are rust or micro-sized bugs - but it doesn't seem to have affected the crop.

On the up side, we haven't been troubled with blackfly this year.