What is eating my beans?
 

Every year I have this problem and I am sick to death of it.

I love to grow runner, French and broad beans and I am determined that this year I need to do something about the 'bugs' that are getting to my beans. All goes well up until the flowers bloom. I wait patiently for the beans to form and then........disappointment :( Very few beans to pick. Something is chopping them off before they form so what I have is the stalk which looks like somebody has come up with a pair of scissors and cut the beans off. Last year I sprayed with a bug killer but it didn't work. I will be planting extra plants this year but can somebody tell me what is it that's doing this and also how to stop it PLEASE!!!!

I doubt very much whether it's "bugs" bugs - simply that the flowers are not being pollinated. Then what happens is that the dead flowers fall off leaving just the stalk, with a very neat end because unpollinated flowers are designed to simply detach themselves.

It's rumoured that some parts of the UK had a dry summer last year- if this was the case with you, then that wouldn't have helped pollination. Try making sure that the soil is moist once the beans start flowering, and spray the flowers daily with a fine mist of water.

It will also help if your garden is rich in pollinating insects, including bumble bees and hover flies. You can consider planting flowers that are attractive to bees, and avoid using bug killer around the garden when flowers are out, since it will of course kill all the pollinating insects as well as the "bugs".

Thank you Kay. I hadn't thought about that. I will plant something nearby which attracts bees, etc and hopefully this will be all that is necessary. I had been told different reasons and one was the flea beatle and that's why I used a spray bug killer last year but, of course, it didn't work so maybe you are right. This year I will spray only with water.

Fingers crossed ;)