Runner Beans

Runner Beans

…also known as climbing beans and pole beans.

It’s quite late for planting runner beans, but, as they say, better late than never. I prepared the deep bed by digging out any weeds and hoeing the whole bed. Then I made a circular-ish trench about three feet in diameter.

I stuck 8 foot bamboo poles in the four ‘corners’ – if a circle can have corners! These were then tied together at the top. I had to get OH to do that, as I’m not tall enough. Between each ‘corner’, I then added two more poles (twelve to a circle) and these were also tied in at the top, to make a kind of wigwam. The poles are about 9” apart at the base.

 

The beans were duly planted – two bean seeds to a pole, one either side:

After that, I tied string round the poles to make a kind of trellis for the beans to climb up. It’s quite fiddly and time consuming, but there’s no rush.

I have two wigwams and a total of forty eight beans planted. Looking forward to lots of runner beans later in the season J

I also planted another two rows of carrots and four rows of French beans. Then I set the laburnum tree straight – it had blown to an alarming angle during the gales last week. I re-set the stake and pulled the tree forward, before tying it back to the stake. The tree is only young, so it is unlikely to be a problem for it.

And the vine, newly tied onto the rafters of the greenhouse, is beginning to spurt into growth.