On Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:39:57 +0100, Judith in England
wrote:



I have grown Red Rum Runner Beans for years very successfully and have never
had problems with them. (I certainly recommend them)

This year (like every year) - I planted 20 seeds in individual 3inch pots in
new compost - 2 inches deep as per usual and the instructions. All pots had
been well cleaned in Jeyes Fluid after use last year. The pots were in the
greenhouse.

Only 8 of them have germinated and sprouted: and are doing fine.

I have just emptied out the contents of 4 of the other pots - and each bean had
turned to a white mush - almost like glue - but retaining its external shape
and red/black skin. There were also some very small live white "worms" on them
about 3mm long and less than 1mm fat.

Anyone ever experienced this - and any ideas?

(Only yesterday - I planted another twenty beans in situ in the raised bed
where I intended to transplant the others. It will be interesting to see if
there are similar problems - I will report back later in a couple of weeks)

The bean seeds were new this year: Thompson and Morgan.


After my post (above) - I planted out the 8 plants in the plant pots into my
raised bed.

I then planted pairs of seeds (from the same packet as the original) against
each of my supporting canes which I had not yet used: another twenty beans to
the ten canes.

Lo and behold: 18 of them germinated and are now growing up the canes fine.

So 12 out of 20 failures in the pots: and 2 out of twenty failures with the
directly planted ones.

It does look like I had overwatered (for the first time ever in growing beans)
- those in the pots in the greenhouse.

I had this year used capillary matting: and I know when the tops of the pots
looked a little dry - I gave them a watering from the top.

I surmise that the contents of the pots were actually quite moist (from the
capillary matting) - and I thus over-watered them; as I say - never done that
before.

A lesson learnt.