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French beans
Mark Andrew
Posts: 4
Well several leaves are going brown and crispy and I thought they were scortched, but one I am not sure as one of them has suddenly totally wilted. Thought it might be blight?
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Sorry for photos, just found image right icon so here they are again
Looks like they are too dry because they are too close to the fence. i dont think beans and peas etc suffer with blight
They are drying out - lots and lots of water needed. Lyn is right, the fence will cause a rain-shadow so the soil near it will always be drier, and beans need lots of water.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
i have been watering but i'll do more. And yes beans do get blight, but this sort of thing has never happened to me before so i'm lost.
Blight is bacterial - that damage doesn't look bacterial to me. The second pic shows a bean wilting badly, with the wilting getting worse the higher up the plant you look - to me that looks like a bad case of drought. If leaves dry out like that and they are in hot sunshine as we've had over the past few days, you get the sort of leaf damage your photographs show.
When I zoom in on your photos the soil appears very stoney, with bits of broken cement or block or something. Beans need deep and humous-rich soil - I dig a trench and fill it with the contents of one of my large compost bins and a couple of bags of well-rotted farmyard manure before erecting my canes and planting the beans. The high humous-content helps to hold the moisture at the beans roots.
Perhaps giving your beans a really good soaking and then mulching with lawn clippings or something to help the soil to retain the moisture might help
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Bingo and thanks. Although i was watering morning and evening i failed to notice how free draining the soil now is. The scortch marks were scortch thank god and now with heavier watering the plants are doing brilliantly. Lost that one. A lesson learnt. Weather a little different from last year.
Thanks to all.
That's good to know - I was wondering how you were getting on - enjoy your beans
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.