[new_2_veg]

how can i tell when they are ready to start being picked?

thanks

nathan

[wellingtons]

... size you're happy to eat them!

Seriously they will produce doodles of beans if you keep picking them, but if you let them go too far they'll assume they've done their bit.

I like to pick mine when they're about about half inch wide and about 8 inches long, but if you want them smaller just go ahead.  You know they're going over a bit when the bean starts to be bumpy ... what I mean is that the bean inside the green pod starts to swell and the pod is no longer smooth.  But you can still eat em like that!

The more you pick the more you get!

[new_2_veg]

i best pick some then as ive got some over a foot long  :oops:

thanks for that

[GrannieAnnie]

If you do leave them on the plant too long and they get a bit tough and stringy, I cut them into chunks and put them into stews, or save the whole pod until they are very dry and brown, then take out the beans and replant next year!!!

[muntjac]

remember  the nicest things come in small parcels ,, same with all beans , if they run to seed after ya have all ya want  you can leave em to dry on the plants and then depod em  dry completly on paper in a warm cupboard and then jar them as pulses etc .  or as nanna sa7y replant em next year

[GrannieAnnie]

Don't know if its the weather or what Karl, but my runners aren't as bushy as usual, and not as many beans, but still a fair few.

Some were the left over seeds that I bought last year, and some were my own saved ones from last year.  Now OH says that I should be BUYING fresh seeds for next year and they'll be better.  But until I treated myself to some new seed last year, I'd been planting what I'd saved each year since we moved here in 2002, and had wonderful crops, so its just the weather right?

[muntjac]

yes its been to wet ,and not enough sun ,but if you try this if you get to much rain again .take some bin liners split em short side and bottom and peg em down along side the plants  so you cover a good bit of the soil around em ,the water runs off and away ... also the insects havent been able to pollinate the flowers and this is what gives heavy crops ... i am lucky in that i have bee keepers with hives on the rape fileds here so they came my way ....buteven then im down in wieght by a good 50% i planted some new seed alongside the plants in the early part of the year and they havent started flowering yet so hopes are they will catch up in the good " sumer weather "