The message
from "David W.E. Roberts" contains these words:

Not only do you get more beans that way, but you get them a great deal
earlier too.

Which prompts the next question:

if you get a bunch of roots with several shoots, can you divide this to get
several plants, or is it still a single stem with a lot of shoots low down?

You don't. They form a fleshy lump with radiating fleshy roots, a bit
like a rhubarb crown (but smaller), but unlike rhubarb, all the next
year's growth comes from the centre.

I've never kept them long enough to discover whether they can be
propagated by division, but after three years, they can't.

Lifting and dividing your beans each year would be a slightly different way
of growing beans :-)

Certainly not each year...

But why bother? Plant the previous year's roots for an early crop, and
plant some beans later for a late one. I took what is probably the last
picking from my runners this morning.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
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