My runner beans are dying!

The leaves on my runner beans are drying up and crumbling to nothing. What has gone wrong.
I am worried because I have planted a fig tree nearby and the leaves on it are not looking very healthy today.
Have I overwatered? Has it been too windy? Any ideas?

 

Hi redwoods - any chance of a piccie? It's often easier to know what's going if we can see it.

I wouldn't think they've been overwatered, as I understand it, the leaves on over watered beans would tend to go yellow, but it could be that water left on the leaves has caused them to get sunburnt.

If your beans are getting white, papery patches before they dry up and crumble, the first thing I'd ask is, where do you live and were they grown under glass and then hardened off sufficiently before they were put in the ground?

Failing that, it could possibly be some late-frost damage (the temperatures have been up and down and all over the place lately) and beans are very susceptible to the cold - it could be wind burn, or indeed sun scorch or combination of both - a fate suffered by several of my French beans.

I'd suggest, if possible, you put up some sort of 'shade' to screen them from direct sunlight and/or protect them from the wind - I bought a length of horticultural fleece (you can buy it by the metre from most garden centres or, failing that, I notice Poundland sell it too - no idea what sort of size though), which I've put around my beans and held it in place by 'pegging' it to the poles with common-or-garden wooden laundry pegs, you could even use something like newspaper.

 

I think wind damage is the most likely.

Please put your location in your profile.

 

wind damage and water on the leaves causing sunburn is more likely

 

I will try to get a picture. I live in Lincolnshie. Yes it has been very windy and very sunny recently.

 

"I live in Lincolnshie"

Please put that in your profile - then we won't keep asking you :thumb:

 

Mine were outside hardening off in a sheltered spot (well, I thought it was sheltered!). They took a battering none the less, and I bought them in at lunchtime ...

 

This is what's happening to my runner beans, the leaves have gone white and crumbled away, I thought it may have been the wind but now it's happened to my petunia and tomato plants in the green house, any suggestions ?

 

Are their leaves touching the greenhouse glass? (as that's another way to burn leaves).

P.S. Is it a glass greenhouse or polythene covered 'greenhouse'?

 

It's a polythene greenhouse, I don't think it's anything to do with the greenhouse, as my petunia, and runner beans outside have got it, today I noticed the begonia too. I've just been looking at pics on here, there's a photo which says sickly plants, that's very similar to how mine look, it's started with the leaves going white

 

Any chance of a photo?