[otis pony]

Hi, has anyone grown runner beans in baskets?  I have a few plants in pots that i have no room for and wondered if i could put them in baskets and have the beans hanging rather than climbing? Does anyone know if it would work?

[chris23005]

Never tried this but I wonder if the plants would try and climb up the chains or whatever you use to hang the baskets up? In which case, you would need a ladder to pick the beans!

[GrannieAnnie]

I've never tried it either, but would think runner beans would need a LOT of watering as they are very thirsty plants, but if you've got a few spare seeds, try it and see.  It'll either work or won't work! 

[greenun]

Can't see why not - try it and tell us all about it.
I have a lot of trouble with runner beans, I would go out at night with a flashlight and they would be running all over the place. I caught most of 'em and decided to tie them to stakes except this club footed crippled one - I tied him to a walking stick.
Not many people know runner beans got legs, they fold 'em up like plane wheels and only let them down when no - one is watching and galavant about all night.
Some move so fast I only got time to move my eyes  - time I move my head they gone! I'm not going to tell you about squash.

[GrannieAnnie]

Too much Fosters Greenun?? or a touch of sunstroke?  


Funny though! 

[otis pony]

Just going out to clean the chicken run then I'll go and plant my beans in their baskets, hopefully by then the sun won't be so strong.  I'll let you know how they get on.  Thinking about trailing washing line between baskets so if they don't want ot go down they can go sideways, need to do that before hubby gets home, he won't see the beauty in it!!!!

[Starling]

  :lol:greenun.  Once my 5 year old gets tired of proper jobs down the lotty, I am going to get him to keep an eye on the runners

[daisy2]

how big are the baskets? Last year I potted in a small pot and it did not produce enough flowers/pods. May be they need bigger pots.

by the way a washing line with runner beans would look amazing

[Livinhope]

Imagine how easy they would be to pick, hanging from the line.  It may be worth putting some water retaining gel in the baskets, but I also think they would need watering  three times a day in weather like this.

[otis pony]

baskets are some old 'cone' shape ones so I'm hoping the roots won't suffer too much, and i'm hanging them near to the outside tap that way watering shouldn't be too much of a chore!! i'll let you know how i get on

[suziet88]

A thought came to me with this talk of washing lines - has anyone tried growing runner beans up a rotary washing line?   Am sure someone has.

[GrannieAnnie]

Not up a washing line, but I made a long archway 2 years ago over the path to my veg garden and grew 2 different types of runners up each side.  that was good because all the ones growing over the top cascaded down the middle and were easy to pick.  I got the idea from one of our old members.

At the moment I'm growing some alderman peas up canes which I've put into a BIG pot and because of the shape of the pot, the canes are like an upside down wigwam, so again I'm hoping the pea pods will mostly hang outside the canes and will be easier to see!