Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi, can any one help with what may be a very silly question?
Do beans cross pollinate with each other? I was thinking of planting borlotti close by dwarf french beans and runner beans on teepees and wonder if this will cause problems. I am also growing Kelveden Wonder peas next to Hurst Green shaft peas and after reading another thread about sweetcorn cross polinating, I'm now worried that I may have problems and end up with crops that fail.
Hope that someone with more experience than me can help!!!

hi winnie, should'nt think you'de have any problems, i grew my runner beans last year alternately with my dwarf french in pots, so i had twenty large pots 1 french bean 1 runner bean 1 french, and so on all in a row along my back fence and ended up with a good crop.

I wouldnt have thought so either but the RHS site says (in the saving seed section) that runners may cross pollinate but french beans self pollinate. Hmm, Winie I think that as long as you arent growing different variety of runner beans near each other you will be okay. AFAIK the borlotto is classed as a dwarf bean

Thanks LJ - I am growing Firetongue just measuring in at 13" - how sad is that