I read a post recently about runner beans, named were Scarlet Emporer and sometimes Painted Lady not being very productive sometimes and I believe it is because of the lack of bees,as runner beans need the bees to pollinate, if the bee population is low or they are not flying because of the weather or the bean is growing when it is cool, the bees are just not there,on the other hand the snap beans,like French beans who don't need the bees for pollination do well and produce well without them . I have had true runners and French climbers side by side in wet seasons and the French one grows well but the actual family of true runners do not. Thought this might interest someone new who is just starting out XXJeannine
Certainly the Hunter or Algarve type of French is self-pollinating. That's why we can grow them in the greenhouse.
Jeannine, that is my experience as well. I hardly grow runner beans at all, mainly because I prefer the french type but also because the french ones are self pollinating. I also like a good variety, yellow, purple, flat, green, the lot. Much nicer than runners.
I grow sweet peas with my runners looks strange but you have to encourage bees etc to visit ha ha.
My lotty neighbour doesnt support his runners at all - just sows them in a long wide block and lets them grow all over themselves... has a bumper crop every year and says they suffer much less wind damage... never has probs with pollination either. I'm going to try his way esp... as i raided his compost heap and pinched a few of his runner seeds. :o
I'm going to try the sweetpea with runners thing this year for the first time. Just a few dotted here and there amongst them? Or in between every plant?
In fact I have just this weekend sown my sweetpeas in pots in the g/house, so they will probably have to go in before the runners.
I put SP at the end of the row, if you do wigwams you could put a wigwam of SP along side. I find the runners strangle the SP.
OO thats what I call plants for free hee hee, my seed is what I collect from my own RB plants given to me years ago and do very well on lottie and good flavour OH says so I stick with them.
I had a massive crop of about 7 varieties last year including Scarlet Emperor and Painted Lady and put it down to all the borage and fennel I had growing next to it. There were tons of bees attracted.
I also dug 3 barrow loads of fresh comfrey leaves into a trench below the beans a couple of weeks before I planted them out. This also helped I'm sure.
Getting the bees in to your plot is surely what you want to be doing.
I grew runners (Painted Lady) and climbing French (Blue Lake) on opposite sides of the same goal post shaped support last year. A couple of in-flower comfrey plants seemed to attract the bees quite nicely although things came to a dead stop in the 6 weeks we had no rain at all. I did mist spray the flowers early each morning but nothing seemed to set. I'm looking to add a couple of outdoor cuc's this year. Lance
My scarlets produced loads. ;D ;D ;D
My runners grew over a shed shaped frame I built. It looked amazing and you could walk inside to get the beans. Here's pics...
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stan.shepherd/downloads/bb.jpg)
Very impressive Sawfish, our crop was lower
than usual last year, we put it down to a lack of water mainly.
I do have a very water retentive soil and the shed shape seemed to keep the interior cool and moist.
:)
we grow Scarlet Emperor every year, give carrier bags full away, always mulch very well and grow flowers around the wigwams (touch wood its never failed)
water very well when you plant them out (from modules) and mulch well and you don't need to water again. / shades x
Below is what Hugh ( another A4A member wrote which I saved)
He was talking about double digging.
The exception is runner beans. Make a permanent site for these (don`t rotate it), dig a trench 2 or more feet deep, then backfill, mixing in all your old woollen garments (slow release nitrogen), compost, leaves, newspapers etc. and plenty of bonemeal and allow it to settle over winter. Keep on using this site every year and it will get better and better every year.
To the trench I put kitchen waste decomposed anything to retain moisture this encourages the roots to go down and search for water.
Then like Shades says:
(water very well when you plant them out (from modules) and mulch well and you don't need to water again.)
A good thick mulch does work I used woodshavings plus straw ( from chickens) or grass clippings do just as good.
Stops the sun drying out the soil.
my last years experience of sweet peas in the runners was totally opposite to teresa. I had a glorious display of SPs but they'd turned into triffids by the time the runners were starting to grow and really stood their territory at the runners expense.
;D