[Growster...]

Trying a new way to compost the finished bean stems this year.

We never use the position they're in during the winter, so after taking the poles out, we've just chopped the whole lot down, and are leaving them in a shallow heap where they grew. The nitrogen fix will stay there (hopefully), and their mulch will keep down the weeds as well.

Come spring, I can dig the whole lot in and start again...

Should work shouldn't it?

[snowdrops]

Thank d maybe chop them up a bit to aid decomposition 

[mumofstig]

Yep, good method - it's even got a name  It's called chop and drop 

[JayG]

I did that once several years ago having no free space in the compost bins - to my surprise next spring the roots had all produced several healthy new shoots apiece, the mulch presumably having enabled them to safely overwinter.

So, chop, drop, and potentially crop? 

I didn't grow them on because I needed the space, and also they would almost certainly have succumbed to frost because it was still quite early in the year.

If you want to make sure that doesn't happen it would probably be wise to dig the roots out of the ground, although that presumably would defeat the main object of the exercise... 

[Growster...]

Thank d maybe chop them up a bit to aid decomposition 

Good thought, Snows...

A spade clobber here and there will tell them what's what, I'm sure!

[Growster...]

Yep, good method - it's even got a name  It's called chop and drop 

Oooooooh, reminds me of a certain age, Mum...:0~

[Growster...]

I did that once several years ago having no free space in the compost bins - to my surprise next spring the roots had all produced several healthy new shoots apiece, the mulch presumably having enabled them to safely overwinter.

So, chop, drop, and potentially crop? 

I didn't grow them on because I needed the space, and also they would almost certainly have succumbed to frost because it was still quite early in the year.

If you want to make sure that doesn't happen it would probably be wise to dig the roots out of the ground, although that presumably would defeat the main object of the exercise... 

I reckon that if we have a usual winter, they'll be rotted enough to shove a tiller through them to do that, Jay!

Of course, if they grow again, start reading this single post again...

[Growster...]

Just as a slight aside; an old boy on the plot next to us back in the eighties, always grew his beans on the ground and never up poles!

He said it worked well for him, and he was a fabulous stickler for good garden management. His row detail was immaculate.

Funny thing happened many years later, when we took on 'The Patch', (in fact exactly the same plot as he had, but many years after he popped off - it was well overgrown and the worst on the settlement), an ageing chum down there told me that during WW2, he'd been a chef in the military!

Now a certain 'whir' entered a grey 'Growster-Head' here...

What on earth would a chef do with runners all curled up in peculiar bunches on the ground? Surely it would have been easier to let them spread out and hang down a bit, to make life easier!

Answers on a photocopy of John's new book please..;0)