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Judith in England · 13-10-2012, 04:42 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

On Sat, 13 Oct 2012 14:46:41 +0100 (BST), wrote:

In article ,
Judith in England wrote:

I have grown runner beans for years - always very successful. I have always
used bought beans as seeds. This year I have left some beans unpicked - they
are quite long and quite big beans inside them now.

I intend to harvest, dry and us as seed for next year.

Have the pods dried out and are the beans mottled dark brown? If
not, they aren't ripe enough and you may as well cook them. A
rule of thumb that I use for French beans is that, if they shrivel
when I dry them out properly, they aren't ripe enough to germinate.

A retired colleague of mine does that with runners, but I do it
mainly with berlotti and pea bean.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

No the pods have not dried out at all (I didn't want to eat them as I still
have plenty of smaller ones - the bigger ones are big because I intentionally
left them!!)

I think from what you suggest that I will leave on the plants until they
shrivel up, and then check that the beans have become mottled - I guess so that
they look like those in the seed packets.

Thanks