Growing runner beans

[fruitfly]

I'm doing this last minute and haven't prepared and I'm planting a few Streamline runner beans today alongside canes stuck in the ground. The bean plants grow about six feet and I don't think the canes will support that height so will it affect the plants if I keep them short, apart from fewer beans.

[Odsox]

No it won't harm the bean plants but it will make them sprout side shoots, so be prepared for that.
You can even make them grow like dwarf beans by continuing to take out the growing shoots above the flower trusses, but as you pointed out you will get fewer and shorter pods.

[fruitfly]

Thanks. If I soak Kelvedon peas in water overnight, will that help or hinder germination. I've read that they can be planted in June aswell as earlier in the year for a later harvest.

[Flo]

Dunno about soaking overnight. My peas go into seed trays to get them growing before I put them out so they are watered well for a period till they are big enough to plant out. Up here we have enough trouble where my allotments are with a squadron of sparrows (so need to net) without tempting the mice and voles to eat before the peas even sprout.

[Flo]

Dunno about soaking overnight. My peas go into seed trays to get them growing before I put them out so they are watered well for a period till they are big enough to plant out. Up here we have enough trouble where my allotments are with a squadron of sparrows (so need to net) without tempting the mice and voles to eat before the peas even sprout.

[Odsox]

Thanks. If I soak Kelvedon peas in water overnight, will that help or hinder germination

It will help, especially if the soil is dry. Don't soak for more than overnight though as they might start to rot.
Also yes, you can sow runner beans in June for a later crop, although you have to take a chance that equinoctial gales won't strip the foliage and flowers in late September.

[ina]

Gales are stripping everything in my garden at the moment...

[Odsox]

Up here we have enough trouble where my allotments are with a squadron of sparrows (so need to net) without tempting the mice and voles to eat before the peas even sprout.

The "olde fashioned" non-eco way of stopping that Flo, is to wash the pea seed in paraffin as you sow them. I used to do that every time until a few years ago, doesn't harm the peas although I'm not sure about the environment.

I learnt something just recently about peas. I grew some in the tunnel for early crop, and when they finished I resowed to take advantage of the existing support. Very few germinated and those that did, didn't grow at all well.
Was reading the Vegetable Expert book some time later and it said "Don't grow peas on the same site for 2 years" or words to that effect. I didn't know that.

[Flo]

My rule of thumb says never grow any vegetable that you plant annually in the same ground 2 years in a row (makes it difficult shuffling the brassicas mind).

[Odsox]

Yes, so do I (sort of). Brassicas I definitely don't grow in the same place until at least 3 years are up.
Tomatoes on the other hand are grown every year in the same soil in my small greenhouse now for about 15 years, with no adverse effects.
Also runner beans, I have grown them for some years in the same spot just inside my polytunnel door for an early crop, so that the bees can easily find them, and again no obvious problems.
But this pea problem was sheer laziness on my part. The support was still in place so why not reuse it, anyway lesson learnt.

[Weedo]

I know that the broad-acre cropping folks around here will sow beans / peas in the same paddocks in consecutive years - but they apply multiple pesticides, fungicides and fertilisers so there is no possible way any organism other than the crop is going to survive to affect them.

[fruitfly]

my runner beans have already got black fly on them. Will they affect the vegetable?

[Green Aura]

I don't think I've ever had black fly on runner beans but nearly always on broad beans. They'll eat the plants to the point where they won't be able to produce beans if you leave them. Just make a spray of soapy water with a small amount of cooking oil and spray the affected areas regularly.