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In keeping with the latest trends and fashions, I've been reading "Digging for Victory - Wartime Gardening with Mr Middleton" for the very latest advice (at least it was the latest in 1942)...
...and this I've never heared of:
"While we are on the harvesting and storing questions, have you ever tried lifting runner beans and keeping the roots? If you dig them up when the frosts cut the tops, cut off the stems a foot above the ground and store the roots in soil in an outbuilding just as you would with any dahlias - they keep quite well, in fact, they often have tubers on the roots very much like dahlias. They keep well so long as they are quite dry and frost-proof, and you can plant them out again towards the end of April. I don't know that you will get better crops from them in the second year, than you do from seed - not quite such fine beans, perhaps, but you get them considerably earlier, as much as three weeks sometimes, and this year, in particular, it might be well worth doing, because I am told, by people who aught to know, that runner bean seed is going to be scarce and expensive next year."
No Mr Middleton, I've never tried it. Nice insight as what was going on then as well, and the book's a good gardening read as well.
Thought I'd share!!
...and this I've never heared of:
"While we are on the harvesting and storing questions, have you ever tried lifting runner beans and keeping the roots? If you dig them up when the frosts cut the tops, cut off the stems a foot above the ground and store the roots in soil in an outbuilding just as you would with any dahlias - they keep quite well, in fact, they often have tubers on the roots very much like dahlias. They keep well so long as they are quite dry and frost-proof, and you can plant them out again towards the end of April. I don't know that you will get better crops from them in the second year, than you do from seed - not quite such fine beans, perhaps, but you get them considerably earlier, as much as three weeks sometimes, and this year, in particular, it might be well worth doing, because I am told, by people who aught to know, that runner bean seed is going to be scarce and expensive next year."
No Mr Middleton, I've never tried it. Nice insight as what was going on then as well, and the book's a good gardening read as well.
Thought I'd share!!
. This year perhaps I'll remember!
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