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Do you train your runner beans?

bédébédé Posts: 3,095
in Fruit & veg
I always give my runners a bit of help with their first steps.  

I don't know if they see lefthand and righthand the way we do.  Looking up probably.  I think of it as coming from the left and going up to the right.  Soon they will be fully fledged and independent.

It is alos a good time to wipe off any early blackfly.
 location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
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  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    I always have to, or they just try to go straight and fall flat on their faces!
  • bcpathomebcpathome Posts: 1,313
    Yes I use the whip and chair method of training 😄
  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 3,742
    @bcpathome  :D

    Runner beans want to run, climbing beans want to climb so choose your training regime to suit.  A session on the athletic track or the man made cliff sides when young may be a good idea.  Dwarf beans can't be bothered with training at all  ;)
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I train by reward … first to the top gets a 🏅 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited June 2023
    I twice grew runner beans with no support by pinching out the growing points.  A reasonable crop, but curved and dirty beans..  I still had my poles though.

    Responding to the humour.  What training would you give pole beans?  

    Dwarf beans are, of course, French.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    The French are of course untrainable.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 3,742
    bédé said:
    I twice grew runner beans with no support by pinching out the growing points.  A reasonable crop, but curved and dirty beans..  I still had my poles though.

    Responding to the humour.  What training would you give pole beans?  

    Dwarf beans are, of course, French.
    Pole bean training ?  Well, a few nights at a club which offers Pole dancing should do the trick.  You would have to accompany your beans of course - a possible disadvantage ? but your beans may also earn the odd tenner if they are any good.
    Dwarf beans ?  You're right - they'll just shrug their leaves at any mention of training ( they do produce well tho )  :D
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited June 2023
    Humour is difficult on this medium.  Especially mine. which uses a lot of irony.  

    I was expecting a reply for Poles along nationality bias lines.  Expect the unexpected!

    Philippa, your French reply echoed my incorrect thoughts but I was cut off - not by the moderator but by my wife.

    In case of another long hot and dry summer, I have added some French-runner b*st*rds to this year's sowing (now in training).  I can tell by the white seeds, but the runners are new to me as well:  Polestar and Moonlight; they both give the meaning of "white".
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 3,742
    I've lived in France on and off since the late 1980's so my response was definitely TIC.
    Pole beans ?  The nationality thing never even occurred to me - odd how our minds work sometimes  :)
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited June 2023
    Philppa, I lived in Belgium until the late '80s.

    I had a customer in Lille through to the '90s.  He had a first name that he encouraged me to use: Philippe. He usd to joke that I could never spell it correctly.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
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