[Fred.]

Hello,
Sorry for this being my first post, but lets be honest - im here because of this question ;-)

we have a very small garden which is good as im not a gardener :-)
But i am quite tight so im growing a small amount of plants for the summer salads etc.
I am  going to grow beans & peas  against our north facing fence. i did this a couple of years ago & it was quite succesful in supplying  a few meals.
I am going to plant runner beans, French beans & Mange touts, the runners are already planted. so i have mange touts & french beans to plant, if im honest, i think i prefer mange touts, (I think they are gorgeous  steamed  or just raw in salads :-)  )
As  space is at a premium, could i plant both mange touts & french beans together, & pinch out the flowers / remove leaves on the french beans so they grow above the mange touts as i remember the mange touts as being quite small in height
Is this feasible or is it just a silly suggestion ?
Thanks

[snowdrops]

Not all French beans are climbers, I suppose in theory if you pinched out just the flowers they should grow up again to produce another flower bud, but I’ve never tried it, certainly don’t take off the leaves as the plant needs those to photosynthesise

[Veg Plot 1B]

Cannot answers you direct question but have you heard of Square Foot Gardening?

Check it out on the web or borrow book from library.

Just checked the guide for beans it says Bush type 9 plants per square foot; pole type 8 plants per square.

Would have thought one square of pole & bush side by side would work or put a square of something else between them.

Hope it helps good luck.

[sunshineband]

Just to put another bit into your jigsaw... you could grow taller mangetout. Ours are at least 1.5m tall (Indian Golden Podded) and have flowers like pink and purple sweet peas, just smaller. They would look good in the garden, and then grow dwarf french beans in front of them.

[Goosegirl]

Just as a thought, if you plant two different types of beans together would they pollinate each other and what sort of crop might you get? I remember planting sweet peas next to my garden peas and the harvested peas weren't as they should be. I used to grow mangetouts but have changed to sugar snaps as they seem to have a better flavour and can also be used in stir-fries. Any that you miss when picking can be podded for tiny peas. 

[mumofstig]

It's very unlikely French beans and runners will cross, but not impossible (it requires a bee to make a hole at the back of the flower for cross-pollination to occur)
Sweet peas and eating peas are not the same species so cannot cross pollinate (Sweet pea = Lathyrus odoratus
Garden pea = Pisum sativum)

Careful choice of bean/pea varieties (tall and short available for both) and you should be able to get a good crop of each

[lettice]

Depends on the bean type, Id grow dwarf beans one side and peas or mangetout the other.
A climbing bean (vigorous type like cobra) will most probably take over and suffocate the peas unless you can train them very carefully.
I grew some borlotti beans last year (thanks to a pass the parcel donation on here) and they were very easy to tame up  poles and produced an amazing crop for little space wide but six feet high. Now using my own saved seed.

There are so many types of dwarf french beans and you could grow a few varieties side by side or tame them a bit more in pots with poles. I grow all my dwarf beans in pots. One Ive been growing for years is purple queen, it is not too vigorous a spread, but produces throughout the summer loads of tasty beans. Although the bean is purple, once cooked it turns green in the pot.
I also last year grew sonesta dwarf bean, a yellow variety, (another from the pass the parcel on here) and it was a great cropper and a very tasty bean.
They both look lovely when growing too in the garden, being purple and yellow.

[hasbeans]

I grew a metre square of dwarf purple queen last year and they kept 2 of us full of beans for at least 6 weeks, they only grew about 20" high.  they would work on the sunniest side.  Nice bean too!