Topic: Cutting back dwarf french beans

[raking]

Do I pull out the roots or are they like peas and I cut them off at the soil level

[Bugloss2009]

for me, I pull up the roots and scrape off the nitrifying nodules off the roots onto the soil, but if you're not planning on growing anything else in the same spot, it's probably much better to leave the roots to rot down naturally.
Now I think about it, that's probably what i'll start doing too  :)

[raking]

No growth planned til next year, so thanks for that advice

[katynewbie]

I believe that all peas and beans have nitrogen boosting stuff in em, so I leave the roots in. They don't do any harm and if they help then it's a bonus!

[Tee Gee]

I put them in the compost heap, the nitrogen helps with the rotting process.

Plus!  I don't know what will be going into that bed next season(as yet)

It may be something that doesn't want loads of nitrogen,so in this way it leaves my options open without losing the benefit of the nitrogen.

But at the end of the day I don't think it makes a lot of difference choose which way you go!

[manicscousers]

we chop them off as our brassicas follow  :)

[antipodes]

I am even more no-work! I just hack them apart with a mattock and leave the whole caboodle to rot down and give it a turnover with the fork in November. The whole plant will disappear and return to the soil.

[goodlife]

I cut mine off at soil level...bunched the tops and hung to dry...plenty of seeds coming.. ;)
As for nodules..well I always leave them into ground..
But they are not really any use if the soil is left bare and there is no other crop left to benefit from them. So like TeeGee...I agree which ever way, it doesn't really matter.
Those that I do not harvest I just leave them be..let the frost kill them and once I got bare 'skeletons' sticking out of ground then I just pull them off..the stems will normally by then come of clean leaving any good bits into ground and the fallen leaves will be digested by worms...I'm not in great favour of creating extra work for myself..not if I can avoid it.. ::) Any diseased matter I deal with and get rid.

[powerspade]

I cut them off at ground level and last weekend I transplanted my Spring Cabbage where the beans were to take advantage of the Nitrogen left