Allotments 4 All

After planting runners in pots & planting out slugs got to them.
re plant & plant out the wind got them.
re plant & now I'm ready to start picking .
"YES" I LOVE IT

foreigner´s question:
are runner beans any beans that are trained on poles?
I have got climbing borlottis in my garden. are they runners?
or  are runners only they the slightly furry-podded, red-flowering varieties, that are also trained...
I have got those for the first time as well. full of red flowers. none of them setting seed.

Nope runner beans are a specific type.  Whether beans climb on poles or not is down to the variety i.e. French beans can be bush or climber.  So yes, runner beans are the red flowered ones that are a little furry.

I believe borlotti beans are a variety of french bean that you leave to dry on the plant as dried beans again stand to be corrected being a first year allotmenteer!!

thanks.
i harvest my borlottis semi-dry. when the pods wither but are not yet brittle. they  do not need soaking and are delicious in soups. in france and italy, you see them in markets, sold and charged per single bean. i think the french call them flageolets. they freeze very well.

Thats good to know.  I had never thought about growing them although I use them a lot.   Have made a mental note to have a go next year.  Any tips you can offer would be very useful!

they are fairly easy to grow.
where i live, i have to wait till there is no more danger of late frosts. (beginning of may)
i soak the seeds overnight, let them sprout and put 8-10 to a pole. in case of drought, water copiously , especially, when they flower.
as they are self-fertile i do not have to buy the seeds every year. for some reason, they are very expensive. ( the borlottis in the grocers´shop often do not climb- there are dwarfing varieties). i try to keep some of the biggest, nicest , fullest pods for seed,rather than using any miserable odd one i forgot to pick. let them ripen on the pod, "thresh" them, leave them to thorougly dry in the house for a week or two, and keep them in a jar in the fridge till next spring.
as for the proper crop:
i check my bean plot every second day or so. shelling them can be tedious .
blanch them for  2 minutes in unsalted boiling water.
immerse immediately into plenty of cold water to stop overcooking. drain and freeze.
sounds like a lot of work which it is. but come winter:
in a soup with all sorts of other things from your garden...

Just to confuse matters, not all runner beans climb poles, there are bush varieties as well which don`t need any support, and among the climbing varieties there are also white flowered varieties as well as red.

Thanks Blight - the effort has to be better than opening a tin!!!!!!

no contest.