I'm thinking of growing some runner beans up a 6' 6" featherboard
fence, that runs north-south, on the eastern side. What chance of
success is there, not only from just growing, but also producing?

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
I'm thinking of growing some runner beans up a 6' 6" featherboard
fence, that runs north-south, on the eastern side. What chance of
success is there, not only from just growing, but also producing?

Excellent. Especially with a trellis or net support, plenty of manure if
poss, and plenty of water, particularly once they start flowering.

Steve

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
I'm thinking of growing some runner beans up a 6' 6" featherboard
fence, that runs north-south, on the eastern side. What chance of
success is there, not only from just growing, but also producing?

Excellent. Especially with a trellis or net support, plenty of manure if
poss, and plenty of water, particularly once they start flowering.

Steve


I would be very much inclined to put some more support up, either in the
form of a trellis, or a net on further uprights. A 'wall of beans' with a
heavy crop can be very heavy.

Mike

Mike wrote:
shazzbat wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote...
I'm thinking of growing some runner beans up a 6' 6" featherboard
fence, that runs north-south, on the eastern side. What chance of
success is there, not only from just growing, but also producing?

Excellent. Especially with a trellis or net support, plenty of manure if
poss, and plenty of water, particularly once they start flowering.

I would be very much inclined to put some more support up, either in the
form of a trellis, or a net on further uprights. A 'wall of beans' with a
heavy crop can be very heavy.

I hope so! I was thinking of stretching some wire through the holes
in the concrete posts. This would give four horizontal supports - I
don't know whether that would be enough, though.

I hope so! I was thinking of stretching some wire through the holes
in the concrete posts. This would give four horizontal supports - I
don't know whether that would be enough, though.

Well you would need some vertical ones, or canes, for the plants to climb
up.

Word of warning re the wire. Make sure it is plastic coated as plain wire
can get very hot and burn the plants. Plastic covered steel wire as used on
washing lines would do, but not electrical cable, this is a copper conductor
and will stretch.

Hope you do get a bumper crop ;-))

Mike

Mike wrote:
Well you would need some vertical ones, or canes, for the plants to climb
up.

Perhaps I can intersperse some of my dried-up sunflower stalks.


Word of warning re the wire. Make sure it is plastic coated as plain wire
can get very hot and burn the plants. Plastic covered steel wire as used on
washing lines would do, but not electrical cable, this is a copper conductor
and will stretch.

I've got some of that plastic-covered stuff that is used along the
top of chain-link fences, will try that, thanks.

I'm going to use some seed from last years crop, "enorma", and perhaps
mix in some Scarlet Emperor or Painted Lady. How many "generations" is
the seed likely to be good for?

--
I've got some of that plastic-covered stuff that is used along the
top of chain-link fences, will try that, thanks.

That will be ideal ;-)


I'm going to use some seed from last years crop, "enorma", and perhaps
mix in some Scarlet Emperor or Painted Lady. How many "generations" is
the seed likely to be good for?

I am not a gardening gardener, more of the hardware gardener, however on
asking 'her who is the gardener', she says that as far as she is aware, you
can go on for ever, then added that it is enorma she grows. On a wigwam of
10 canes with a bean each side (20 beans) and there are 10 up so far.

:-))

Mike

The message
from Chris Bacon contains these words:

I'm thinking of growing some runner beans up a 6' 6" featherboard
fence, that runs north-south, on the eastern side. What chance of
success is there, not only from just growing, but also producing?

Fine. I grow runners up a west-facing brick wall with very good effect.

Using baling twine, I've nets for them to climb.
thinks
Remember that you oughter give them lots of water
They like a good rich tilth, so fill a trench with filth...

I think that's enough of that! (Ed.)

/thinks

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from Chris Bacon contains these words:

I would be very much inclined to put some more support up, either in the
form of a trellis, or a net on further uprights. A 'wall of beans' with a
heavy crop can be very heavy.

I hope so! I was thinking of stretching some wire through the holes
in the concrete posts. This would give four horizontal supports - I
don't know whether that would be enough, though.

Agricultural fencing wire would be quite good enough. My row is
supported on two hanging basket brackets with a length of 1" square wood
to hang the net from.

The trick is to pick the beans...

....Oh, and before they get stringy. What aren't eaten fresh, I salt, and
freeze the rest.

Tip: blanch them and freeze them with some of the water from the
blanching - they don't freeze-dry at all that way.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from Chris Bacon contains these words:

I'm going to use some seed from last years crop, "enorma", and perhaps
mix in some Scarlet Emperor or Painted Lady. How many "generations" is
the seed likely to be good for?

Indefinite. I've some saved which have descended from beans bought
fifteen or more years ago.

When the beans are finished, and before the frost gets them, dig up the
roots and put them in a plastic bucket, then fill with dry sand.

Keep in a cool place over winter (but it mustn't freeze), and you'll
have a start with the roots. Instead of a single vine growing, there'll
be a bunch of them, and the following year, a bundle...

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

At the time I worked for Gardener's World

Gardeners World? ;-)

Now 'there's' a name drop ;-((

See what I mean newbies about the experience?

The message
from Janet Baraclough contains these words:

I used to have a strain dating pre- WW2. They were the
many-generation descendants of beans stolen from a "Big House" garden
by my friend's great-grandfather, who was a servant there. The story
was, he'd asked the head gardener for some and been refused with a flea
in his ear, so he helped himself anyway. His descendants had kept them
going as a principal of the class struggle :-)

For years my Ole Man saved seed - maybe consistently from 1945 - and
they would have been Scarlet Emperor. When he died saving beans was the
last thing on our minds, or I might have been growing beans almost as
old.

Probably.

I only grew one crop and TBH they weren't particularly good runner
beans. At the time I worked for Gardener's World and the beans got a
mention on TV. I was contacted by some bean-gene researcher at Dublin
University who was delighted to get hold of such an old strain.

The Ole Man used to dig four long, deep trenches, and fill them up with
lots of good stuff, and plant four rows, two rows of beans to a row of
crossed poles.

To begin with, we salted them down in a big stone crock, then, in 1954/5
we got a secondhand ice-cream freezer (domestic freezers were
more-or-less unheard of, then) and in the summer of 1955 I dried hops
from the hedge, bought a sack of malted barley from the local brewery
(carried home in stages in smaller sacks, on me bike...) and made about
ten gallons of rather pleasant beer in that crock. It had the
consistency of Guinness, the strength of Chimay and the colour of a
summer ale, and it tasted all the better for being totally illegal. (Mr.
Marples removed the duty from home-made brews quite a few years after
that...)

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
(Mr. Marples removed the duty from home-made brews quite a few
years after that...)

Erm, wasn't it Reginald Maudling?

The message
from Chris Bacon contains these words:
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
(Mr. Marples removed the duty from home-made brews quite a few
years after that...)

Erm, wasn't it Reginald Maudling?

Might have been, but I thought it was Marples, in his pre MoT incarnation.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/