Runner Bean Advice

Yes, nip out the growing tips that are getting too high. More will form, all the way up the plants and they will continue to climb skywards, producing flowering stems on the way.

As the new shoots will grow quite quickly you will need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't droop down to the ground. If they start drooping then encourage them to climb by winding them around the canes. Make sure that you wind them in the same direction as the ones that have grown up the canes themselves. handle them with care so that you don't break the stems.

I grow mine differently and don't need to nip out the tips, but you need a lot more space for that. Some of my plants are 14ft long already and I train them overhead similar to the way they train vines. As it's dark out now I've grabbed some old photos of how I grow mine.

 

@Verdun
Here's a link to something I posted about the ShineyFrames

I've Bean Meaning To Start This Year's Thread

I grow the beans through porous weed suppressant plastic so I never have to do much weeding. In the winter I roll back the plastic, remove an occasional perennial weed, dig in fresh compost and roll it back. The soil also warms up quicker early in the year and the plastic helps stop evaporation. The other advantage is picking during wet weather as you're not walking through mud.

I don't rotate crops as I dig in plenty of compost (compost heap mixed with horse manure and ash from the bonfire) and have had no trouble in the 45 years I've been here.

I grow a lot of beans and sell them for charity.


you'll see that the posts are in line with the centre of the bean rows and also between the rows and outside the rows. Strong plastic coated wire is permanently in place between the posts and around the outside of the posts (forming a rectangle around the outside and lines of it between the posts). I then run plastic string from the sides, across and around the bean canes right to the other side. Then run more string in rows at right angles to it. This forms a cats cradle effect over the top.


The beans not only grow over the top and between the rows but extend outside - at the ends.


At this time of the year I spent about 15-20 minutes each day making sure the runners are climbing properly (wind them in if they aren't) and bring the ones that are trying to grow to the sky down to the cats cradle and wind those in.

 

Some time back I did a controlled experiment on the system. One section was nipped out at the top of the canes and the other was left to grow. The ones left to grow had a 40% greater crop. The difference was greater than I would have thought but then I had a closer look. On both sections there was very little successful bean production on the bottom 3ft (flowers dropped off before setting, probably because of being earlier in the season). So the nipped out ones only had 4ft+ highly productive crop whereas the others had 9ft.

 

@Verdun another alternative is this open frame I've used for a few years now, it is suitable for a smaller garden like mine since I can cram another crop underneath. I grow salad leaves under such as lettuce and spinach. Mine also provide much needed shade for my greenhouse at this time of year. The open side needs to face due south for this frame design to work. Following photos are from previous years, I've made it taller and longer since the first photo: