Runner bean growing

How to Grow Runner Beans

23 March 2017, written by Ann Marie Hendry

We all know that beans are a musical fruit, or good for your heart, depending on which version of the rhyme you learned when you were a nipper, but in the UK at least no vegetable garden or allotment plot is complete without a wigwam foaming with scarlet-flowered runner beans.

The reason? Well, not only do they make a delectable vegetable, they are drop-dead gorgeous too.

Sowing and Growing Runner Beans

Runner beans - a type of pole bean - were traditionally planted atop filled-in trenches dug the previous autumn and stocked with well-rotted manure or shredded newspaper. Kitchen waste will work too, because the main reason for doing this is to provide a deep, moist root run that will help runner beans to resist drought. Drought is a major enemy of beans, so avoid this at all costs.

Start sowing runner beans in spring and keep sowing every couple of weeks until early summer to spread out the harvest. Exactly when to sow will depend on your climate, so check out our Garden Planner for customized advice. The earliest seeds can be sown in modules or seed trays in a greenhouse, tunnel or on a sunny windowsill for transplanting later on.

Runner beans dislike cold soil, so wait until the soil has warmed to at least 10ºC (50ºF) before planting them out. You can warm soil a week or so in advance of sowing or planting using cold frames, cloches, row cover tunnels or even just sheets of plastic.

Later sowings can be made directly where they are to grow, but beware of hungry slugs and make sure to protect seedlings from wind damage. Covering them with a cloche (even a recycled plastic bottle will do) will provide all the shelter they need until they establish.

In cool or windy locations you can protect plants and boost pod production by growing them to maturity in a greenhouse or tunnel – just make sure to ‘stop’ the plants, or pinch out the growing tips, when they near the roof.

While closely-related French beans are self-pollinating, runners need help from pollinators such as bees and hummingbirds, so yields will be hampered by a wet, cold summer when insects are unlikely to be flying. A dry summer is bad news too, so make sure to water during rainless spells and mulch to preserve that moisture.

Beans are usually pretty trouble-free, but keep an eye out for black bean aphids infesting the growing tips. If this happens, clip off the tips and dispose of them.

Supporting Runner Beans

Get supports in place before planting your runners. Any frames or trellis need to be sturdy enough to support these lanky beans, which grow to well in excess of 2m (6.5 feet) tall and which will become extremely heavy when laden with pods. Netting is often used along with canes or poles to allow the vines to clamber about freely.

Bean wigwams look just as attractive in the flower garden as they do in the vegetable garden. Runner beans were originally grown purely as ornamental plants, so you can find exciting flower color choices such as ‘Scarlet Runner’ or the ravishing red-lipped white flowers of ‘Painted Lady’.

You may need to tie young plants in to their supports initially, but once they’ve got a grip they should manage on their own. If they’re catching the wind they may need to be tied in at intervals.

When the plants reach the top of their supports, pinch out their growing tips to help divert energy into flower and pod production – and to avoid the plants turning into a jungle of tangled stems and foliage.

Such tall, leafy plants will cast shade, so plan your garden to include shade-loving crops behind your towering beanstalks.

Harvesting Runner Beans

Keeping up with weeding, watering and mulching is important while the beans are growing. Apply an occasional liquid feed too. Harvesting will commence around midsummer and continue until the first frosts. Runner beans will crop slightly later than French beans, so for variety and to extend the season it can be worth growing both.

Pick your beans while they’re still quite small to avoid any stringiness, though having said that modern cultivars are usually bred to be stringless. Pick at least every other day, because you’ll be astounded at how rapidly a bean pod can grow – they seem to go from flat to fat in the blink of an eye!

If you’re going to be away during the summer, invite friends and neighbors to help themselves to your beans to encourage continued cropping for when you return. Alternatively you could use the break as an opportunity to switch from producing fresh pods to maturing beans for drying. Gluts of the whole fresh pods can be chopped, blanched if you wish (I never do, I can’t tell the difference!) then frozen.

Beautiful, productive, and delicious – what more could a vegetable gardener ask for? Share your runner bean growing tips or favorite varieties with us in the comments section below.

Plants Related to this Article

Beans (Pole) Grow Guide

Bugs, Beneficial Insects and Plant Diseases

Aphid, Black Bean Guide

Slug Guide

Spider Mite Guide

< All Guides

Garden Planning Apps

If you need help designing your vegetable garden, try our Vegetable Garden Planner.

Want to Receive Alerts When Pests are Heading Your Way?

If you've seen any pests or beneficial insects in your garden in the past few days please report them to The Big Bug Hunt and help create a warning system to alert you when bugs are heading your way.

Growing beans in the country

Beans are unpretentious plants and, if desired, they can be grown in our difficult climatic conditions. Especially green beans - or asparagus beans, which need less time to ripen than usual.

First, decide which beans you will grow - bush or vine. It must be borne in mind: the bush grows in a rather lush bush of short stature, and it must be planted sparsely (the distance between rows is about 30 centimeters, between plants 10-15 centimeters), and the climbing one grows towards the sky, it will need to be tied to supports.

In our area, it is better to choose early and mid-ripening varieties so that the beans have time to ripen. These are, for example, such varieties as “Bona”, “Sweet Courage”, “Oil King”, “Purple Queen” - it takes up to 60 days from germination to ripening.

Bean is a heat-loving plant, it is important that our Siberian warmth is enough for it. We have frosts even in June, so it is better to sow seeds in late May - early June, it all depends on the weather. While they are in the ground, they are not afraid of frost. Shoots at a favorable temperature appear in six to nine days. And at this moment it is important to water the plants if the ground is dry, so that the root system develops faster. After watering and rains, the soil should be loosened, so the beans grow better.

You can also grow beans through seedlings. Sowing seeds is carried out in peat pots with a feeding area of ​​8 x 8 centimeters, in kefir bags, etc. in early May. Three to four week old seedlings are planted in open ground in late May - early June, when the threat of frost has passed, in the phase of two or three true leaves. Seedlings should be planted three to four centimeters deeper than they were in the nursery. Bean sprouts are very tender and often break in the loop phase, so gardeners prefer to grow the plant through seeds planted immediately in the ground.

Experienced summer residents advise hilling grown plants twice - in a two-week interval. Then the growing beans will not fall from the wind or under the weight of their leaf mass.

Beans are demanding in terms of nutrition. Therefore, it needs to be fed twice a season. The first time after the appearance of the third leaflet - this is necessary to build up the leaves. The second time in two to three weeks - now the plant is growing stems and laying flowers. The more flowers there are, the higher the yield. Fertilizer can be taken any complex for vegetables.

Excessive moisture is something that asparagus bush beans do not like very much. Cultivation should be accompanied by moderate but regular watering once a week with a doubling of volume during the flowering period. After watering, it is recommended to loosen the soil around the plants so that air does not stop accessing the root nodules.

If the bush beans develop well, then some branches and pods will be on the ground and begin to rot. Therefore, you need to tie up the bushes, lifting the branches and pods. And it is also important not to miss the moment of harvesting - to monitor the growth of the pods and check them, pick them still green (or yellow, or purple - depending on which variety), do not let them dry out. Otherwise, the beans in the pods will harden. And you get regular beans.

Accent

Of all legumes, beans are the most demanding on soil fertility. Curly beans are especially demanding on soil and climatic conditions. Bush forms are less demanding.

The best soils for beans are light loams and sandy loams rich in humus with a neutral soil solution. If the soil is acidic, then it must be limed. Beans grow very poorly on heavy cold soils with a close occurrence of groundwater.

Content

• 1 The advantages of beans
• 2 The most popular varieties of garden beans
• 3 sowing of decorative beans for seedlings
  • 3. 1 Plants of planting
  • 3.2 Planting for seedlings
  • 3.3 Planting seedlings in a garden bed and sowing seeds in the ground
• 4 Caring for ornamental beans
  • 4.1 How to water and feed beans
  • 4.2 Garter
• 5 Bean propagation methods

Ornamental bean is an unpretentious, practical crop, which is usually planted along fences, arbors, wall sections. Fast growing, reaching a length of about 5 meters, loves a warm climate, the warmth of sunlight. Suitable for eating beans of any variety, with the exception of purple beans. The culture has a low calorie content and a large amount of vegetable proteins. An ornamental plant enriches the surrounding soil with nitrogen, concentrating in the root part.

Benefits of beans

You can eat ornamental beans, they contain a whole range of useful substances:

• magnesium elements;
• calcium;
• chrome;
• zinc;
• iron;
• vitamins of groups A, B, C, E.

Please note!

Beans increase the yield of potatoes growing nearby, protect against late blight. Leaves are processed into fertilizer and compost.

String and grain beans of various types are used for cooking. You can choose a variety suitable for decorative purposes.

The advantages of beans include:

• fast growing, it is possible to turn large vertical plots green in a short warm season;
• undemanding to environmental conditions;
• a large number of varieties, varieties for everyone to choose from;
• attractiveness for a long time, thanks to unusual original inflorescences, pods;
• possible use of greenery to create fertilizer;
• nourishing the earth with nitrogen, due to its accumulation in the rhizomes.

The most popular varieties of garden beans

Beans are not only a beautiful plant, but also a food crop. There are 2 types:

• grain or shelling, its pod has a layer of parchment that fills the voids between the fruits - beans. The structure of the pod is harsh, so it is not used in cooking;
• Curly asparagus beans, green, sugar, the pods of which grow juicy and crispy, suitable for freezing. Suitable for consumption when slightly unripe. But with a full cycle of ripening, you can get a good harvest of fruits (smaller, unlike grain).

Varieties of semi-sugar curly ornamental beans have been bred, the photo can be found below, which has combined characteristics of both shelling and green beans.

Popular varieties of climbing beans:

1. Bluechild bean, has a purple color of flowers, pods, leaves, gradually turning into a dark purple color with time. The vegetation period is about 100 days, in the conditions of the middle lane, grow this late crop using seedlings. Flowers appear early and last until frost.
2. Common beans. Annual, combines indicators of a vegetable - pods and ripened seeds are used for food, and an ornamental plant. It winds up to 3 meters, has a large number of small flowers, dense foliage.
3. Purple Queen Bean, a low shrub with purple buds and pods.
4. Turkish beans, fiery red curly beans. Unpretentious, red-flowering from June to September. Pods are inedible due to tough fibers, ripe beans are no worse than their associates.
5. Purple dolichos, blooming like a lilac, easily grow in warm weather, provided with high decorative effect due to abundant flowering, large leaves, pinkish stems. This is a rare variety with a pleasant aroma of flowers that can withstand cutting and keep in a vase for about a week. After flowering, purple, violet or dark green pods in clusters are very showy.
6. Grain beans Violet, early ripening, with pods of bright color, distinguished by juiciness and tenderness, edible.
7. Vigna Caracalla, growing with vines up to 7 meters, in our strip is an annual, inflorescences look like snails. Spiral flowers can be white, yellowish, cream, golden, purple and violet, have a pleasant aroma and longevity.
8. Winged beans, with unusually shaped pods, both racemose inflorescences and leaves are used as food. It has medicinal properties, grows in length by about 3 meters.
9. Beans Winner, with bright scarlet flowers, thirty centimeter pods will curl.

And many other varieties:

1. Borlotto beans.
2. Bean Green giant.
3. Curly golden nectar beans.
4. Spanish white beans.
5. Curly purple beans.
6. Turshevaya and others

Sowing ornamental beans for seedlings

Seeds will need to be selected before sowing:

• discard foreign matter;
• examine for external damage;
• discard scratched, split, cracked and those that show signs of disease (suspicious stains, rotting).

Then disinfect with a solution of potassium permanganate to prevent the development of diseases, hold in liquid for a couple of hours, dry. Then make biological activation, prepare for subsequent germination - soak in heated water. Then you can start landing.

For trouble-free cultivation of the whip, keep the pots in the room from planting until planting in open ground. The sign for the beginning of the transplant is: the formed two or more real leaves that have irrevocably passed frosts. It is allowed to plant decorative varieties of early ripe beans in the southern regions about 2 times during the 1st growing season.

Planting dates

The last date for planting in the soil is mid-June. The soil should warm up by +15 degrees 10 cm deep, such warming occurs:

• in the southern part of Russia in the first days of May;
• in the middle lane in the last days of May;
• at northern latitude in early and mid June.

Planting for seedlings

Growing ornamental beans for seedlings starts from the last days of March. The beans are distributed in peat pots about a centimeter deep. Only one family is planted in each pot, sprouts appear quickly.

Plants reaching a height of about 10 cm require special support, seedlings should be at a stable temperature of 20 to 22 degrees Celsius, no need to pinch off the shoots.

Planting seedlings in a bed and sowing seeds in the ground

Transplanting seedlings is carried out in a period when bean sprouts have not yet developed, in order to avoid poor adaptation, they are transplanted into soil with a small part of the earth.

Sowing seeds in open ground takes place from mid-April - the period of early sowing. Much more often sown from early to mid-May. Beans, like cucumbers, do not tolerate frost, so when planting, you should focus on the cucumber crop.

Before sowing, the soil must have a stable temperature of about 14 degrees. Seeds can be soaked 15 minutes before the start of the process in a solution of potassium permanganate with a concentration of 1%. Then put 2 or 3 seeds in prepared dimples up to 2 cm deep. The distance from hole to hole will be approximately 30 cm, and from row to row - about 50 cm. Near each of the holes, a wooden rail should be installed, the length of which varies from 2.5 to 3 meters.

Please note!

Provided that the earth is completely warmed up, landing is carried out on a leveled area, and if it is not warmed up and surrounded by groundwater, a full-fledged ridge is prepared.

Ornamental bean care

Ornamental curly bean planting and care: a young crop should be protected from cold weather, provide a temperature for full development of at least 18 degrees Celsius every day.

If the degree in nature is lower, cover with film, spunbond and other covering materials. Already mature beans are not afraid of small frosts, resistant to low temperatures. Weeding is a must to take care of the culture.

How to water and feed beans

Beans should be watered regularly in all weathers, especially dry and hot weather. During dry days, it should be watered without a horn from a watering can. Pour settled warm water without chlorine along the middle line of each row between crops. In no case should liquids be allowed to get on the buds.

Can be fed with superphosphate and other organic fertilizers, with the exception of fresh manure. Significant benefits can be obtained by mulching with hay, sawdust, wood chips or straw. The ingress of both dry and liquid fertilizers on bean leaves is excluded in order to avoid burns that are difficult to heal.

Attention!

Gently pour the dry fertilizer onto the soil, spread the liquid fertilizer into each row from a watering can without a horn.

Tie

First, the seedlings should be stable:

• hill up;
• lay the plant in the direction of the intended growth.

Even during the planting period, slats were installed near each hole, on which the grown greens will be tied. This is necessary so that the whips do not creep along the ground under the weight of their weight. Tie with small ropes in 1-2 places in the direction of growth, so the beans will be fully provided with sunlight, moisture and the opportunity for full growth.

Ways of propagation of beans

Propagation of beans occurs in two ways: planting seeds directly into the soil or through seedlings. Seedlings will provide flowering much earlier, however, gardeners do not like this method very much due to the difficult tolerance of the culture of any transplants. Seeds soaked for a day in water + 18-25 degrees with a growth stimulator are dried and sent for planting - no less effective way.

First you need to prepare a bed in a sunny area, because beans are a heat-loving plant. If you make mineral and nitrogen fertilizers, they will give growth to the green mass to the detriment of the fruits. The culture can be sown when the soil at a depth of 10 cm reaches a temperature of 13-15 degrees.

Learn more

• 
  How to sanitize leather furniture
• 
  What color couch with yellow walls
• 
  Decorate small kitchen living room combo
• 
  Grill set up ideas
• 
  Interior window walls
• 
  Rose flowers garden
• 
  What colour is in
• 
  Change room design
• 
  Country kitchen colour ideas
• 
  Farmhouse style kitchen islands
• 
  Birthday party ideas for adults outdoors