Scarlet Runner beans, very popular in UK, as you say they don't like the
intense heat.
We grow them every year here in the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario.
Best if picked on a regular basis, if left too long on the plant they will
be stringy, meaning a tough strings each join side of bean must be removed
during preparation to each, top and tail bean remove any strings , and
french "slice about 1/2 slices on the diagonal" drop slices into salted
cold water bring to boil and cook till just tender, drain and serve.
First frost will finish plants, ours have just finished, :-(((( jblts


"Guy Bradley" wrote in message
...
I thought the group might be interested in my experience this year
with Scarlet Runner Beans. I grew these for the first time this year,
more intriqued by the flowers actually than by the beans. I treated
them like pole beans.

During the hot summer months, the beans grew and flowered, but set no
beans. Had I not been so lazy, I would have pulled them out for lack
of productivity. But the flowers are so pretty!

Finally, about a month ago, definitely in the cool of fall, the plants
began to bear beans! They are continuing to bear even now - we haven't
had a frost yet, remarkably. The crop is never heavy, but continuous.

The beans themselves are flattish, like an Italian bean. The range of
sizes is incredible - some are only a few inches long and some grow to
a foot long. No matter how big we let them get, they still cook up
tender and tasty. Actually, the taste is better than expected - some
references said the beans were mediocre as green beans. I haven't let
any of them mature as dry beans.

If anyone has experience with Scarlet Runner Beans, perhaps you can
shed some light on this behavior, which I regard as unusual for beans.

Guy Bradley
Chesterfield MO
zone 6