Topic: French beans or runners and which kind?

[Svea]

must say i was disappointed with my canadian wonder beans. have let them grow on for podded beans now.
i think i didnt get on with the fact they were flat - how do you know when you should pick them? at least with round podded beans you know, and if there is colour (yellow) as well - bonus i say! that's my excuse and i stick with it ;D

tim, grow purple for fun and makes easier to see against the foliage? purple teepee hold their beans above the foliage also, great for picking. :)

[jennym]

Has anyone tried the long skinny Asian beans ?  Are they Kenya beans?  I have eaten them and they are really good but don't know if they would grow here.

When you say Kenya bean, do you mean like in the supermarket? because if so Cobra are similar.

[tim]

Do you mean 'yard long beans', Baggy? If so - no!

[moonbells]

Kenyan beans are the really thin anorexic ones which supermarkets love to have in their expensive trimmed overpackaged displays.

For all that, I like them. So I grow Safari (Sutton's) which is a Kenyan bean and crops pretty much all season. I've still got beans coming off them and they were started off direct planted under bottle cloches way back in May. 

I've tried climbing Cobra and can't recommend them. They were dreadful in my patch!

I also love Berggold which is a fatter yellow round pod with a distinctively different taste. But Sir still likes them. Given his reaction to anything green is usually that of a 3 year old boy, the fact he eats beans is a distinct plus... so I grow loads.

Runners I grow for me. The taste is nicer. I too tried Painted Lady last year which were pretty but didn't get terribly long before they turned woody at an astonishing rate. This year I reverted to Enorma, which really are, but you get a few days' grace on picking before they go woody.  I made an effort this season to pick before they got big, and it has really made a difference. With Enorma they are still  about 10" long before their sides need to be trimmed. You can snap them into inch pieces and cook/freeze the lot. 

moonbells

[Meg]

What about those dreaded slugs. I have fed thousands of the little darlings with my trial of beans. Put the seed in ground and they just munched em as soon as they appeared. Put in as little plants and at least half of them survived.
I kind of love that feeling when the sun is shining and you pick your runners in the shade of em. It's just one of those moments I look forward to!!! :D

[kentishchloe]

I grew climbing french bean 'Blue Lake' this year - huge crop over a seemingly endless period, delicious small and dainty or fat and crunchy. never been a fan of runners i'm afraid.

[Moggle]

I love french beans too!

This year I am growing Blue Lake and Cobra, and they are just starting to really crop well now. I particularly like the cobra, loads of long slender pods.

Also have Purple Teepee (thanks Doris Pinks!) and Hildora (yellow) which have tasted lovely - well what the slugs left me tasted nice  ::)

[Wicker]

Used to grow dwarf beans but nowadays it's always climbing French Beans for us - we like runner beans but space is limited and prefer the French.  Way top of my list for flavour and abundance is Blue Lake - have twice tried Cobra but the results weren't great.  Also grew Yellow climbers this year and tho pretty tasty and very attractive I will stick with the Blue Lake next year (space again!!)

[supersprout]

Definitely French for me - well, eye-talian ::), as it's Borlottis for me from now on! Both bush and climbing varieties do well on my plot. They are yummy green (like French) and when full leave the pods for fresh or dried beans. I like a bean that works hard ;) and they are good looking too ;D

[the_snail]

Kenya beans are very tender ans flat thin things. I like them but have never grown them yet! Looks like something to try next year :) I suppose they would be nice raw in a salad? I will have to dig out my seed catalogues (no pun intended :D) and have a look.

The_Snail

[Tulipa]

I just want to say thank you to everyone for all the help and advice in this thread, I shall have to read through again and see which beans will be best, definitely french I think!  Hopefully the whole family will eat them too!

Thank you once again, you have all been so helpful.

[BAGGY]

I started my beans this year a la Tim's advice ofchitting them on wet kitchen roll and will do so from not on - brilliant idea.  I then planted them on into plastic cups from poundland and then onto lotty when big enough.  I thought Kenya beans were drinking straw thick and over 12 inches long.  That's the ones in the asian shops I meant.  Thanks for  the advice.  Iwill try climbing french too next year.

[redimp]

I will continue to grow French and Runners as I have found two more veg that my son will actually eat (its not 4, French, Runners, peas and carrots - he doesn't even like sweetcorn) and as he obviously like bean pods, intend to increase the varieties next year.  My personal favourite is probably now French beans but I still love Runners (just not quite as many as I grew this year)

[Ern]

  For dwarf French, try Purple Teepee: they do go dark green in the pan, but I always get a very good yield from them.  And the flowers are very pretty.
  Instead of runners, what about borlottis ? Instead of leaving the beans to mature, you can use the pods, and even the bigger ones don't seem to get as stringy as runners.  But they lose the pink blotches, and end up green as well.

[RosieM]

Hi all,

I grow both, the runners for flavour and the french for cooking. I grew Galaxy runners this year and they were terrible, most disappointing - went woody quickly, slow to start and generally pretty weedy. Last years Painted Lady were better although not brilliant.

The French, which were dwarf, were difficult to germinate and kept getting 'slugged' but still cropped well when they got going, although the slugs still got to the beans on a regular basis.

So, next year,  I'm going to try climbing French and Borlotti ( an A4A convert) with a few runners for me as the family are now completely disillusioned with them.

Cheers  :)

RosieM

[Robert_Brenchley]

Nobody in my family likes runners, climbing French are the thing. A few wigwams provide all we need.

[clara]

I'd like to add another vote for COBRA - climbing french bean.  I haven't bothered with runners this year and haven't missed them (apart from the flowers).  I do find Cobra quite difficult to get started, they hate being planted out too early and in fact my best ones this year are from seed planted directly outside in early June after earlier failures.  Nevertheless, its worth effort, they crop heavily, delicious long tender buttery beans, still harvesting now.

[MikeB]

Much prefer runners although I grow both, my choice for runners is Kelvedon stringless, good cropper and tender with a good taste.  There are better tasting varieties e.g. Desiree, but I found Kelvedon the best all rounder.  Strange but I find runners much easier to grow than french beans, from the previous posts I guess I'm doing something wrong.  Poor germination rate for french beans.

MikeB

[supersprout]

You're not alone, I had lousy germination rates for French beans this year,  I tried sprouting them on a damp flannel and they swelled up and grew BLUE MOULD :( but the borlottis from Seeds of Italy did well ;D.

[Paulines7]

then let the beans get really big and soon I'll be picking, shelling and freezing just the beans from inside.

Jennym's quote

I didn't realise that the French and runner beans that have gone too big to be eaten in their pods are edible as such.  Presumably they are cooked like broad beans?  What do they taste like and do they have to be soaked if they have dried out a little.  I have far too many beans that have gone over and there is a limit as to how many I will need for next year. 

My runners were Thompson & Morgan Summer Medley.  They have different coloured flowers giving a unique 3 colour blend.  The varieties are separated within the packet and consist of Lady Di, Sunset and Desiree.  They not only brightened up the veggie bed but did not go stringy and were delicious.  I also grew Blue Lake French climbers.