Poor Runners

[Jono]

Love that arch Ginger Ninger.

Maybe a runner bean trench might help next year? I've done that this year after successive seasons of rubbish runner crops, and have doe okay (not brill, but better).

[barney]

I am growing Enorma and Moonlight - from T and M - I had no problem germinating- this year. I dug trenches and filled with newspaper, kitchen waste and compost plus chicken manure pellets and then planted the bean plants grown in modules. I have been inundated with runner beans.

[Two_Sheds]

I grew (well tried) to grow Moonlight as well, absolute waste of time and money

Well mine have been brilliant! Early and very prolific. I'm now drying them on the plants to use as butterbeans

[BarleySugar]

I've grown Moonlight and Desiree this year. The bean sticks were put up N/S, but the prevailing wind seems to have been SW, so the Desiree have copped the wind every time. Kissykit prefers the Desiree to eat raw, but they haven't done well. The Moonlight have been much better, but seem to be running out of steam now. Germination was fine, and I always put 2 plants to a cane. I have noticed that those peole who used strings intead of canes haven't donw well at all. I don't think the plants could cope with the wind as well. Next year I'm planting E/W, the row will be end on then, and I might not need to put guy ropes on the row to keep them upright!

[Jelliebabe]

We've had loooooads! I grew red ones and white ones! (sorry i dont know the proper names as they were given to me by fellow allotmenteers!) I have two/three per pole (accidentaly!) and they are romping away. My Mum picked 8 lbs on Tuesday and brother picked 7lbs on Saturday! My mum and I also have bags of em in the freezer too! I would say also that we have been picking them for ages too.

I think we did get a good head start though and I put lots of newspaper in a trench underneath. I haven't watered them apart from when they were little. Apart from that they have looked after themselves!

I will do more next year! Would be nice to not buy beans!

[ginger ninger]

I will do more next year! Would be nice to not buy beans!

I'd only just finished using last years beans out of the freezer when this years started to crop ...be careful what you wish for J.B .

[snohare]

My Scarlet Emperor beans started away great, almost 100% germination (I soaked them all), they put on plenty foliage and started flowering, but since going out at the plot they have come to a screeching halt. Not lack of water, I have had them either in with lots of moist compost and manure underneath or with containers of water under the buckets; not lack of feeding, I have been giving them a foliar feed of compost tea. Quite simply, I think it is not sunny enough, and there is no heat in the air - if it isn't windy it feels hot, but with any wind it feels like the end of September ! Really peculiar weather.
Broadies are doing fine, albeit after poor germination, I have just left them and they are flowering away, but it looks like poor pollination - the Chinese next door, just twenty feet away, have row upon row of fine healthy bean plants with flowers that are turning black and falling off unfertilised. Yet we do have bumblebees and hoverflies galore...
I had a bucket of bush beans specifically for growing in pots, they were growing fine until the beginning of the month, but they haven't even started flowering.
I don't think it is just one thing, it is several things that have just all added up, the main one being lack of sunshine.