What is eating my runner bean leaves

[Kempie]

For the past three years I have been trying to grow runner beans. Every year, the leaves are eaten.
There is no evidence o snails/slugs (no slime trails) and I have surrounded to plants with broken eggshells and the bed with copper tape
Cats are a possibility so I have tried using ground chilli.
We do have pigeons, so have put fleece in place to scare them.
All to no avail.
The picture shows some beans I planted before adding the fleece

[Peanut]

Hi Kempie, welcome to the vine!

My guess would be slugs and snails. They are sneaky little blighters and they don't always leave a slime trail.
If those are link-a-bord beds, I have some of those, and when I took them apart I discovered that there were loads of snails living within the corner brackets. Also your copper tape looks, shall we say, well loved, leaving lots of ways for the slugs and snails to get through, let alone the slugs that live in the ground of the bed itself. They will also travel along any over hanging foliage to get to your juicy runner beans.

I hope they grow on so you still get a good crop, or you could still sow some more and keep them in pots until larger.

Good luck!

[Jungle Jane]

Hello & welcome to the vine,they’ll be back every night they know there’s fresh food there. I go out with a torch in the dark,you can drop them in salt water,put them in a jar & take them for a walk down the field or other methods. I made these half bottle protectors in the photo about ten years ago,with copper tape from the garden centre wrapped around. Good quality copper tape wont peel in the rain & sticks for years. Takes a while to make them all but worthwhile for the years of no worries. This photo shows one with two pieces of copper tape but some have one piece of copper tape in the middle, There’s about three plants out of about twenty that don’t have a protector but I think snails just go to the patio instead of trying every one. I would sow some more,beer traps can help too if you bury a little pot of beer with the pot edge about an inch above ground so beetles don’t fall in etc. add a roof of some sort on stones/bricks incase of rain. Good luck

[Nicos]

Or…do you have any rhubarb ready for taking?
Placing the leaves upside down next to the plants will encourage them to hide under them…then you can dispose of them accordingly the next morning.

[Kempie]

Afraid something ate the rhubarb too

[Nicos]

How rude of me!…welcome to the Vine Kempie.

Although slugs and snails are your most likely bet, have you seen any grasshoppers around?

I only ask because for three or four years I have recently spotted what looked like a large solitary ‘locust’ munching it’s way through, with great speed, all the leaves on a climbing bean pyramid.
It wasn’t a locust exactly but some species of large grasshopper, but the damage was incredibly fast and only eating the leaves, not the stems.
It’s just a thought.

[ChingfordHarry]

All my early sowings this year of both runner and French beans were consumed by snails/slugs - not a trace of slime. Later sowings protected with ferric phosphate slug pellets seem to have survived (most of the slug pellets have disappeared, presumably eaten by the molluscs - I've had to spread them round three times this week...).

[Mark_Riga]

All my early sowings this year of both runner and French beans were consumed by snails/slugs - not a trace of slime. Later sowings protected with ferric phosphate slug pellets seem to have survived (most of the slug pellets have disappeared, presumably eaten by the molluscs - I've had to spread them round three times this week...).

I think mice eat them as well.