Thanks everyone for your good advice. I suspect that water has been
the problem. We're on tank water and have been having to be careful
until fairly recently - not because of some miraculous rain, but
because we have just installed a system that will pump water up from
the dam to water veggies, so now are able to be more generous with
water onto the plants.

Ta,
Tish

On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:24:16 +1100, Chookie
wrote:

In article ,
Tish wrote:

Hi All,

I've only lived in Sydney three years and this is the first year I've
planted beans in the veggie patch. I have two varieties - purple king
climbing beans and yellow bush-form butter beans. Both varieties are
looking unhappy and burnt and aren't growing very much, which makes me
suspect that I planted them too late in the season.

Hi Tish -- no, you have planted the bush beans at the right time, at least (I
am not an expert with climbers). You can plant beans right through summer. I
suspect that yours might be a bit overexposed to sun though, or not getting
enough water. If your garden bed gets lots of westerly sun you might have
trouble keeping things alive -- use shade cloth to protect them.

I'm planning to plant some climbers after the hot weather in February and see
how they go (and I have also been shopping at Diggers).