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Wonder if anyone can suggest anything to help my sickly looking beans? I planted a row of french and a row of borlotti about 4 weeks ago. Since then we've had constant cold,windy weather. I put some fleece around themand gave them a feed,but theyre not really recovering,just sitting there looking p****d off ! They don't look very green either. Would a dose of Epsom salts or magnesium help ?? Any suggestions gratefully received. Thanks,Gaynor x

I'd also love to know the answer! My runners look quite yellow and sad at the moment.

Borlotti beans have quite yellowy leaves anyway. Mine are doing great in the polytunnel but I expect they'll take a while outdoors.

Beans need excellent drainage and will die if there is too much rain or no drainage. Is the fleece keeping the water around the roots? I doubt epsom salts would do much at this point, but you could try a seaweed concentrate diluted to the level recommended on the label, and if you're watering the beans, stop.

my runner beans got very battered in the wind I have left them in situ in the vain hope that they will come back to life but have also put some new seeds in next to the plants.....I think next year most of my plants will be just put in situ as all the plants I have transplanted courgettes pumpkins beans etc have all been damaged by the high winds....

Wind and dry conditions will do no good for your beans.

We all fall in to the trap, with the hot April's these days, of sowing our beans early and then getting hit by cold spells in May.

However, if not too badly affected your beans will recover, given warmer weather - so long as the slugs don't get them in the meantime. If you have any more beans to sow then you could sow them because they may well overtake the early ones.
Most of my beans, although not looking too happy, have done alright, but one lot I obviously didn't harden off enough before planting out. These got decimated by the cold spell and as with any signs of weakness the slugs moved in as well, so there was nothing much left of them, but they have started to recover, new leaves appearing. Meanwhile the next successional sowing is catching up fast.