Some pest is biting off the flowers on my runner bean plants. I have a total of two beans on twelve plants. All are in bloom but no beans are growing. All that is left is little stalks which should have a bean at the end. I have had this every year but this year is very bad. I noticed a lot of flea beetles on the flowers and wondered if it was those so I sprayed with a bug killer a couple of weeks ago. Still no beans though.

On 29/07/2015 10:30, Lintama wrote:

I bought some Giant Russian sunflower seeds and planted them out a
couple of months ago. Spaced at 18 inches each. Very tall plants but
tiny flower heads. Only about 2 to 3 inches across not including the
petals. Was hoping to feed the birds with the seeds but looks like
there will so little of them. Gave the plants some miracle grow on a
couple of occasions.

What could be the problem please?

Not enough high potash tomato feed and not enough warm summer.

My non climbing beans are still taller than my climbing beans at
present. Partly because the latter are competing with a row of spuds.

The climbing beans briefly grew in the short warm spell and do now have
some nice red flowers but they have stalled again in the autumnal cold
of July. Yesterday was 9C overnight and barely got above 12C all day.

Weather forecast suggests frosts possible later this week

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Thank you for advice.