GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

Janet · 04-10-2013, 05:12 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

In article ,
says...

Is there any virtue in saving one's own Runner Bean seed for planting in the
next season. I was asked the question as to any pifalls in using saved
seed, but not being much of a gardener I have to ask those who know.

They must be one of the easiest and most successful of seeds to save.
Choose the biggest, lumpiest looking pods, pick the whole, closed pod
and hang it somewhere warm and dry inside until it's brown and brittle.
Then open it and extract the dry seeds, spread them out for a day to
make sure they are bone dry then save the best and biggest in a tin, or
a paper bag.

My grandfather always saved his RB seeds. Podding and sorting them was
a favourite winter evening job for us as children.

Years ago an elderly friend gave me some saved seeds of an RB which had
been grown and handed down his family for ever a century. They
originated from the garden of some Big House where his forebear was a
lowly gardener. Impressed by the crop he'd grown for his wealthy
employer's kitchen he asked if he could take home some seeds for his
home garden and was refused. So he took them anyway :-) I grew them for
a couple of seasons but TBH found they were not as good as my favourite,
Red Emperor. Geoff Hamilton was tickled by the story, asked me for a few
and repeated it when he planted them on GW. Some weeks later I got an
excited letter from a plant geneticist in Dublin, and gave him the rest
of my stock.

Janet.