Yippee!! Yum Yum!! Runner Beans

As some of you know, I take a chance each year by starting some of my beans off in the greenhouse and then planting them out earlier than recommended. Some years the frost gets them and some years it doesn't.

This year it didn't :thumb: and, although I have picked the odd bean so far, I have just picked my first full meal of them. Gonna have them tonight :D




I plant the seeds in succession over quite a period of time and so they go out into the garden over a couple of months. Usually by August they seem to have got to the same stage but the later plantings last a bit longer.


These photos were taken this afternoon. Notice the sunshine :thumb: :D


These 'Polestar' that I have just picked were planted out late April. (Just the end of the row near the camera)




These 'Armstrong' were planted out the second week in May and are catching up to Polestar. They are a more prolific plant.




These 'White Lady' were planted out three weeks later.




These 'Mergoles' (Thanks, Kandy :thumb were planted in the greenhouse on the 22nd May and planted out the week after White Lady.




And these 'Galaxy' (not planted by us) were rescued from being very pot-bound with the leaves all yellow and planted out two weeks ago. They are just recovering.

 

Hi Init,
It is weed supressant plastic and can be bought at most garden centres. It is porous so the rain water gets through :thumb:.

This one I bought at least four years ago and is still as good as new and comes on a roll that is 2 metres wide. You just buy whatever length you want.

You will also need to have a method of pinning it down. They were selling plastic pins for it but I thought they were too expensive and, as I needed a lot, I made mine out of very heavy duty wire. It was difficult cutting the wire as it was so thick but I cut it into 6" lengths and then bent them over into unequal lengths - approx 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" - and pinned the plastic to the ground about 2ft apart. You could use old bricks instead which is much easier. You need to do this otherwise the wind will take it away.

I don't have to do any weeding throughout the growing season :thumb: and then each Autumn I roll back the plastic, dig it over, remove the perrenial weeds and dig in loads of compost.

To grow things through it all you need to do is cut an X (6" maximum is all that is needed) in the plastic and plant your veggies through the hole. If you water by hand (or hosepipe) you just need to put the water in the hole. In the dry weather the plastic slows the evaporation rate and the plants do much better. :D

I also grow Butternut squash, courgettes and tomatoes through the plastic.




You can see that I have supplemented the wire pins with some bricks because we had very strong gales a few months ago and there are open fields behind my veggie plot. I had the bricks lying around because I had taken down an old brick gatepost.

 

BM, I'll tell Mrs shiney you said so :thumb:. Of course, I agree with you :D.

This is what I think you mean about my pea field (I just popped into the garden to take these shots).







And the verbscum you had from my veg plot should eventually look like this :thumb:

 

Someone got their pea & bean seed mixed up?

 

No John , it's a bit of an 'In' joke from when BM came round to my open garden.

Init, I think they are being grown as animal feed :confused:

 

Andy, you can get it in most garden centres - but shop around by phone first because they vary a lot in price. Where I got it from it was called weed suppressant plastic.

It is porous so lets the water and rain through but for plants like courgettes etc you can just water them by applying the water through the hole where they are planted. :thumb:

 

Thanks coub :thumb:. The dates I put above each picture are the nearest approximation I have - and each one is named.

I start all my beans off in the greenhouse in ordinary seed trays. I plant (actually, Mrs shiney does the planting) two seeds together and get about 16 seeds in a tray. Early on in Spring they take about 7 -10 days to germinate (without heat) or 4 days with heat in the propagator. Late Spring they take about 4 days without heat. The early ones stay in the seed tray about 3 weeks and the later ones about 2 weeks. Then they are planted out.

Done that way we know that all the canes will have beans. When we used to put the seeds directly into the ground we never knew if they were going to germinate. As we plant them through the plastic I guess that the soil is a bit warmer and that may help them.

If the frost gets the early ones then there are plenty more coming along in the greenhouse. We never bother to harden them off (which we should do).

Init, they are the broad bean family - but I think they make more money out of them as animal feed :D

 

I think this one is even cheaper :thumb: .

http://www.allplaz.com/acatalog/Woven_105gsm_Weed_Control_Fabric.html

It is well worth it as it saves so much work.

I bought mine at a local garden centre about four (?) years ago and seem to remember that I paid about £34 for 2m x 50m. I would guess that it has saved me at least 25 hours work each year :thumb: :D :D :D :D