Stringless runner beans

diggersjo · September 2023

hague14140518 said:

I'm wondering if a runner bean can be truly stringless, surely the 'string' is part of the engineering of the pod. I'm thinking of trying out Pole star or Lady Di next year. What do others think?

We grew Lady Di (by luck/chance) and they have been superb. I did wonder why we had no strings to deal with and was guessing it was down to continuous picking early and never storing i.e. pick and eat the same day.... Trouble is they are so prolific we've been eating beans every day...

Lyn · September 2023

I’ve bought some of those stringless beans in Tesco, flat, pale and tasteless, I wouldn’t want to grow them.

philippasmith2 · September 2023

hague14140518 said:

pansyface said:

Smuggling?

Just what we need.

Why do you suppose phytosanitary certificates exist?

Even without smuggling we have had ash dieback and Dutch elm disease.

Well, it was a bit tongue in cheek and also a last resort. Do you actually think that Dutch elm or Ash dieback are the result of smuggling. And do you believe that a plant grown from seed across the whole of UK will provoke disaster in France? A sense of proportion is required. But by all means go without wide ranges of food, if that's what you think is right.

philippasmith2 said:

I don't grow Runner Beans but even the dwarf and climbing beans can have "strings" if left on the plant long enough. Same with Sugar snap peas. Easy enough to deal with and I'd say it is a pleasant "mindless" task rather than "mindful" whatever that actually means

Do try Sugar Ann

I've not heard of the variety Sugar Ann - I assume a type of Runner ?. I'm more than happy with the dwarf French and the climbers I grow now

hague14140518 · September 2023

Sugar Ann is a snap pea that gets sweeter as it gets bigger and only becomes tough at the very last stage. We hardly ever cook ours, in fact most of ours end up being picked and eaten straight off the plant. I think that mindful is a reference to a kind of meditative state where you can engage in spirituality.

hague14140518 · September 2023

pansyface said:

Smuggling?

Just what we need.

Why do you suppose phytosanitary certificates exist?

Even without smuggling we have had ash dieback and Dutch elm disease.

Try this
https://gardenseedsmarket.com/graines-de-haricot-blanc-phaseolus-coccineus.html

They call them Haricot, but actually they are runner beans. Not much variety though.

Dovefromabove · September 2023

Just been sitting prepping runner beans and listening to Peter Pears singing Housman… bliss

hague14140518 · September 2023

Lyn said:

I’ve bought some of those stringless beans in Tesco, flat, pale and tasteless, I wouldn’t want to grow them.

A very good website for all veg is Real Seeds. Supermarket seeds are generally rather poor.

Dovefromabove · September 2023

Glad you’ve found them @hague14140518 … Real Seeds have long been recommended on this forum by several regular posters, including IIRC @lyn as well as I. 😊

hague14140518 · September 2023

Dovefromabove said:

Smuggling seeds is illegal. There are sound scientific reasons for that. I presume you think that you know best so the law doesn’t apply to you.

Just as the speeding driver knows best … they’re a better driver than everyone else so they don’t have to keep to the law.

Dangerous arrogance.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/plant-health-in-gardens/protect-your-garden/new-pd-risks

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/export-plants-and-plant-products-from-great-britain-and-northern-ireland#exporting-from-great-britain-to-the-eu-switzerland-or-liechtenstein-and-moving-goods-to-northern-ireland

I do hope that I'm not arrogant, and as I said the smuggling bit was only half serious. As it happens, you can get what we call runner beans in France, it's just that they treat them as a variant within the Haricot family, so you have to search using the Botanical name and varieties are limited. The OP drew attention to the fact that it's Brexit that means you can't get UK seed varieties across the channel. I guess the paperwork is just too much hassle. So, in short, if I lived in France and I wanted to grow a variety of Phaseolus Coccineus that wasn't available over there (because of Brexit) then I'd feel pretty OK about putting half a dozen seeds in my pocket. In the cold war it was illegal to take Bibles and religeous literature that believers were desperate for into Russia, so brave Christians smuggled them in. Illegal yes, immoral no. I think a sense of proportion is needed here.

Dovefromabove · September 2023

As a child in the 1960s I remember my parents’ small farm was brought to its knees in the 1960s by an outbreak of Swinefever like this

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/stray-meat-snack-may-have-caused-swine-fever-outbreak-698448.html …

caused by someone who thought ‘what harm can it do if I break the rules and bring something tasty back with me from my holiday’ …. after all everyone knows better than the experts don’t they? To compare it with smuggling bibles is disingenuous in the extreme.

These things multiply exponentially whether it’s an infection of animals or plants. Rose Rosette virus is indelicate in parts of the USA. There are strict rules about importing roses to the UK from the US .., it’ll take just one person who knows better than the experts, or who is so selfish that they just don’t care. https://planthealthportal.defra.gov.uk/assets/uploads/Rose-Rosette-Virus-information-note.pdf

Arrogance or ignorance … it’s one or the other. It’s certainly not an example of intelligence and social responsibility.

Stringless runner beans

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