Allotments 4 All

 As some of you know I have been unable to do any lottie gardening this year so OH has bulit me 8 raised beds at home. They are all  made the same, same height, same wood same sunshine etc and all filled with new commercial compost. What is interesting is what is growing well and not.

The potato bed is smashing, the roots are romping away, the squash bed is great and so is the brassica bed, the salad one is fine too, onions are good, outside toms are doing well ...BUT... the beans are dreadful. I have several types in the bed, none are doing anything much, some went out as plants and others as seeds and all are  are useless????

I have always found beans to be one of the easiest things to grow too.

Ideas welcome

XX  Jeannine

Jeannine,

I was sorry to to hear of your incapacity.

I have found that after more than 50 years of growing vegetables, I would never now retreat from raised beds.

There are many reasons why plants do not grow and this year in particular my beans are not doing well.

You are an experienced gardener and I have every confidence that you will succeed.

Welome back!

Lots of people have been complaining about how badly their beans are doing this year.

Thank you both, perhaps just coincidence then.

XX Jeannine

I'm in the southwest and my beans - both french climbing and gigandes are doing very poorly indeed. Seems to be a bad year for beans in some places.

Tricia

Mine are way behind last years, they are coming......slowly though.

My runners have grown at snail's pace - French beans have done a bit better. One possibility though, is that your raised beds were drying out a bit quickly during the good weather we had a month or so back: this would affect the beans more than the other crops you mention.

I planted late this year and that seems to have been good for the French beans which are now flowering so hopefully soon producing. Runners are getting there too. Given that I'm in Scotland I don't expect much of a crop before the end of July but then it sometimes continues until November.

Planting late? These are still waiting to go in ..... :-[

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I've still got quite a few trays of stuff to go out too, I tried to be a bit more prepared in case blight struck early and wiped put all of my potatoes and outdoor tomatoes leaving me with nothing to follow on.

My runner beans are going out this weekend, my dwarf french beans are fantastic, starting to crop now, but the climbers are.....pants! It's as if they don't know how to climb. and are just sitting there sulking. :-\ I've grow a few HSL varieties this year, so haven't got any left to try sowing direct to see if they do any better...at this rate I won't be getting enough to try or save!  :o

My beans were very slow to get going, but seem alot better now. Would love to see some photos of your set up jeannine.

My runners, butler and enorma, are now at the top of their poles and flowering like mad, I have even picked a few from the lower levels. Having said that they were planted out very early and I was lucky I didn't loose them to frost, a lot on our site did but I am near the top of the (gentle) slope.
My dwarf french are rubbish, slow growth and almost no effort to produce a crop. I think sometimes a crop won't do that well for whatever reason. Last year my beetroot was a disaster, this year I have tonnes of the stuff. C'est la vie.
Woppa

Mt Enorma have until a few days ago been rubbish but over the past few days big improvement, seems pretty general complaint this year.

Have to say my beans are not doing as well - I had blamed it on the cool overnight temps we had in June as they usually grow very quickly when planted out. They are having a go now though and the secod sowings of dwarf french I made as a successional crop are starting to catch up the June planted ones.

Started harvesting this week from the first planting of dwarf beans. I think the seedlings (which were quite developed in root trainers) went in in mid May. Second planting went in last w.e.

My dwarf french beans are terrible- still only about 5" tall and looking very yellow despite lots of feeding.

just harvested some purple podded beans, they were sowed in rootrainers in march, planted out end of april..the others, planted out in may, are very slow, a few flowers, no beans  ;D

I planted my French beans out only a couple of weeks ago and they are doing a lot better than last year as they have leaves on. i have both climbing and dwarf...though i have had to add supports for them today as they are growing tall. The dwarf beans are just about to flower. Last year they were just stalks after the slugs ate them but I did get a good harvest off my almost leafless climbing beans last year.

My runner beans are very slow.Had a great crop last year so disappointing so far,live in hope though :)

My French, runner and dwarf broad beans are all rubbish - although I have to say Black Fly seems to be the problem with the broad beans.  :'(