[hubballi]

Why on earth have you got them in the greenhouse hubballi ?   I just dib a hole in the ground and drop the seen in.

Because I was advised here to.

[fatbelly]

French beans are brilliant. I only grow them to freeze as they are excellent when frozen.  They keep me going all through the winter and longer.

AS how do you freeze? do you blanch & if so for how long. I am hoping to get a decent crop this year and will want to freeze them all.

[Yorkie]

French beans are brilliant. I only grow them to freeze as they are excellent when frozen.  They keep me going all through the winter and longer.

AS how do you freeze? do you blanch & if so for how long. I am hoping to get a decent crop this year and will want to freeze them all.

See here on the main website, fatbelly 

http://www.allotment-garden.org/recipes/storing-the-surplus-freezing

[Aunt Sally]

Thanks Yorkie

[GYO Girl]

Why are my climbing french beans growing in spirals?  I haven't got one straight one yet!

[lazza]

Runner beans are about the only thing I just do not like. (Maybe because my Dad used to grow three or four rows of them and we would be eating runners every day for 4 months...)

But French beans, love 'em.

I have very little space (no allotment, just a garden full of flower beds and the kids' stuff) so can't grow too many. But had enough for a meal at the weekend of my purple teepee dwarf beans, and picking them has certainly encouraged the remaining beans to grow on and also caused more flowers to form. I only have 6 plants in a small 60cm rectangular pot, so it's not ideal growing conditions, but for the little time and effort needed, well worth it. My 6 blue lake were planted a month later, and are just starting to climb the canes and produce flowers, so expect them to come good as the purple beans run out

Oh, and the packet of purple teepee says I can plant until August, so our girls and their visiting cousins sowed some more this weekend

[hubballi]

Runner beans are far far better than French beans. You get more for your plant and they taste better. French beans are temperamental little wispy things that (if you are lucky) produce a couple of curly small things. I won't be bothering again.

[sunshineband]

Runner beans are far far better than French beans. You get more for your plant and they taste better. French beans are temperamental little wispy things that (if you are lucky) produce a couple of curly small things. I won't be bothering again.

Wouldn't do if we all liked the same 

[Yorkie]

Can't abide runners and french beans have always done me proud (this year excepted!)

[spuriousmonkey]

one thing i noticed about the dwarf beans vs climbing beans this year is that the climbing beans have been dropping most of their flowers with only a very few pods so far. The dwarf beans don't seem to be bothered a lot by the lack of insect activity and are producing pods like their lives depended on it. And it does of course.

I hope the weather will pick up and the climbing beans will get their thing going.

[mumofstig]

french beans, climbing and bush, don't need insect pollination, runners do 

[New shoot]

Can't abide runners and french beans have always done me proud (this year excepted!)

Same here    Well I will eat runners but OH hates them, so I don't grow them.  Usually I have loads but they are only just starting to get going on the plot this year.

I think they are easier than runners because they don't need watering half as much. In fact I don't usually water them at all once they are planted out unless it is particularly dry.  The ones I grow up the toms in the greenhouse get watered with the toms, but I think the slugs got most of them, despite the pellets I scattered around

[arugula]

Can't abide runners and french beans have always done me proud 

I agree.

[Ice]

Can't abide runners

Wash your mouth out.

[mumofstig]

runners must be one thing that isn't made better with cheese 

I just love them...it was going to be a disasterous year if they didn't grow  but they have just started setting, so maybe I won't get as many as usual, but there will be some.