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Runner beans vs. French beans

For years I've successfully grown climbing french beans (cobra) and this year the crop has been fantastic, still producing and a freezer full of beans. However, the better half fancied some runner beans this year. I don't know if it was the variety I tried, Firestorm, but they were pathetic. I grew them at the end of the french bean row. I only got a couple of crops off but found that if you picked the two beans that were ready on the bunch, the rest just shrivelled up. I've poured on lots of water and it didn't seem to make any difference and they aren't flowering again. The plants look healthy enough and given them liquid feed but still no flowers. Is it just the variety, the hot dry weather or what? In contrast the french beans are still producing and flowering. I always thought runner beans were dead easy to grow.

Posts

  • Nothing scientific, but we’ve found the temperature makes a lot of difference (x3 types we grow are cobra, hunter and lady di). I suspect some like the colder temperatures (but not too cold) and the others the warmer. However like everything to do with growing veg, you can never tell…. We grew the 3 types in a raised bed going from west to east with a large oak tree at the west side where the hunter were growing in a wigwam with 2-3 plants per point. These were obviously also disadvantaged by the shade at that end and once the middle lady di overtook them in height they seemed to give up. Very little if anything on these two, but the cobra at the east side are still producing and still have flowers. Next year we will likely grow the same, in a different bed (same aspect), but we will swap the hunter to the better side just to see if it helps. I do however suspect the temperature is the main factor.


    Yorkshire, ex Italy and North East coast. Growing too old for it!
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited September 2023
    If you can grow climbing French beans but you want runners,  try the Runner variety Moonlight. 

    They’re a hybrid between the two … taste and look like runners but a bit hardier so not so temperamental about cooler spells of weather if summer is a bit late starting, and without the pollination problems.  We get lovely heavy crops and won’t grow any other kind … neither will our neighbours since we left them in charge for a fortnight a few summers ago and our beans were doing so well when theirs were disappointing. 


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





  • I have grown Firestorm and Moonlight for a few years now and they've always produced bumper crops.
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    That is strange because our Moonlight ones have been very pathetic this year.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • Many thanks for all your comments.  Moonlight could be a possibility. The last few years we have suffered from lack of rain and often high temperatures in July/August/September.  We haven't had much rain here for nearly 2 months.  Has anyone tried Equator runner beans that are supposed to be especially tolerant of drought and high temperatures? 
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