Topic: Spagna Beans

[bison1947]

Looking for a few Spagna Bean Seeds.
Have purchased all my seed for this year.
the only place i can find the beans here is
from Thompson & Morgan & the P&P is just
as much as the beans.
Will swap if u need anything

Bison,,,,,,,

[Sparkly]

How many seeds are you looking for?  :)

[Bugloss2009]

If you don't mind waiting a bit, I'll have some spare (having ordered them yet). Or some other nice person on here will have them.

Seeds of Italy also sell them http://www.seedsofitaly.com/catalogue/9/0

phew, thought they'd stopped seeling them  ??? they now say they're butterbeans

[Sparkly]

free P&P this weekend at T&M

code: WSE231

[bison1947]

Thanks for the heads up on P&P from T/M
Just ordered the beans thank you again

Bison...

[terrier]

Hi, I thought Butter Beans were warm climate plants? Is it possible to grow them outdoors in (north) UK?

[Bugloss2009]

they're actually Runner Beans with big seeds that look like butter beans

you can grow proper butterbeans (just). Seeds of |Italy offer a variety of them also

[saddad]

I grew a few Spagna in a big greenhouse last year... now I know they are "runners" I'll try them outside..  :-[

[Sparkly]

Mine were really successful last season, but I would definately recommend starting them early with some sort of protection because they have a long season.

[saddad]

How early Sparkly?  :-\

[Sparkly]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK6R_PX02E8&feature=player_embedded

Ours were in as plants by the end of April last year and you can see the protection we used in the video above.

It was risky, but it did seem to pay off!

I had planned to put some seeds in direct at the beginning of May if we lost them.

[saddad]

Did you need to fleece the tops of the wigwams at all? Impressed you had flowers in June...  :)

[Sparkly]

I didn't fleece them at all Saddad. I was planning to if a frost was forecast, but it stayed quite mild.

The main problem on our site is that it is quite windy hence the protection around the sides.

I grew them the year before and made 2 mistakes:

1. I planted them up a structure with other beans and I couldn't tell them apart from the runners so it was difficult to decide which to pick and which to leave to mature

2. I planted them mid-may direct and the beans had really not produced that many before the frosts came.

They did really well this year and I have quite a few 1bs bagged up in the freezer and some more dried.

Although the bolotti's went in at the same time they were nicely dried out for harvesting, the spagna just wanted to keep growing. I ended up harvesting most of them with the pods still green!