Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Growing in Greenhouses & Polytunnels => Topic started by: adri123 on April 09, 2014, 08:05
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Hi
I have plenty of things going really well in the PT. My question is whether plants grown early will continue to crop throughout the season or should I have a later sowing. Eg. I have runner beans about 5 inches high and I suspect they will crop nice and early but will they also finish producing beans early?
TIA
Adri
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Obviously growing under cover extends the growing season at both ends - by how much depends partly on your location, and partly on luck.
Although runner beans are self-fertile, unlike most of the usual flowering greenhouse crops they need bees to trip the flowers and set them, and this can be a bit problematical even outdoors, at least to begin with, so I think I'd wait to see what happens this year before experimenting further.
French beans are much better self-pollinators, and would probably be a good choice for successional sowing in the PT.
Other crops, like toms and peppers, tend to take up most of the 'greenhouse summer' anyway, but they do have some built in flexibility (if they are robust and in front of the calendar, you just let them produce more trusses/set more fruit than you otherwise would.)
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Although runner beans are self-fertile
Is this true JayG ? I always thought most traditional runners needed pollinating, hence my decision this year to try the new self fertile hybrid moonlight, bred between runners and french.
Could I really go along the row of runners tapping the flowers like one might do with some plants in the greenhouse ? Are they as self-fertile as broad beans and chillies ? Would be nice to know, as last year my runners were plagued with the wrong sort of bee, those that don't actually enter the flower, but drill from the side.
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Moonlight is a French/runner cross and is really self fertile ie does not need any insects to pollinate them, in the same way as French beans :nowink:
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Yes, it's a lovely bean :)