[teflon]

I've recently heard it said that if you grow peas &runner beans you must grow Sweet Peas as a companion plant ,to attract insects for pollination. How true is this? Can they be grown succesfully without the Sweet Pea, or is it  a sort of "belt&braces"thing?

[Yorkie]

I have often grown them with sweet peas simply because they all climb up the same canes, but very few of the older lotty people on my site do so - and their beans are fine.

No need to do so unless you'd like to.

[matron]

Peas and beans have their own flowers but the sweetpeas just add to the encouragement of the little beasties 

[paintedlady]

And not just for runner beans ... their scent & splash of colour attract the bees to the plot for your other fruiting veg too (when they return to the hive, they'll tell the others were there is a great source!)   

[lacewing]

I always grow a row of sweet peas next to my beans, not only are they good for attracting pollinating insects, they are a wonderful room freshner when placed in a pretty vase

[matron]

I always grow a row of sweet peas next to my beans, not only are they good for attracting pollinating insects, they are a wonderful room freshner when placed in a pretty vase

Exactly lacewing. When cut from the plot it doesn't matter but if cut from home it is noticeable. 

[peapod]

If only I could just remember to get mine out of the GH and take them up to the plot! 

[matron]

If only I could just remember to get mine out of the GH and take them up to the plot! 

Mine have already made it down there and are sat in a cold frame awaiting planting out. 

[teflon]

Thanks for all the help.
  Cheers
 Tel.

[celjaci]

I would never put sweet peas with garden peas in case you picked the pods by mistake - sweet peas are poisonous!!!

[paintedlady]

I don't know how you could possibly mistake sweetpea pods with eating peas - they have a fluffy coating, are long and thin, and the seeds inside are really quite small in comparison, hard skinned and a different colour!