Get Creative Growing Runner Beans

Runner beans are beans that grow on vining plants.  Usually runner beans are grown for dried beans instead of fresh green beans (though most runner beans can be eaten as fresh green beans when they are small and immature.)

Our two favourite varieties of runner bean are Scarlet Runner Bean (Phaseolus coccineus) and Rattlesnake Bean.  We like Scarlet Runners best because they are very productive, covered in a profusion of small red flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies, and have a delicate, sweet-nutty flavour.  The Rattlesnake Bean is also productive, though the vines don't grow quite as tall as Scarlet Runners will.  The flowers are paler, but also lovely.  The beans, if picked young, have that true green bean flavour that you might remember from childhood.  As dried beans, I found them unremarkable, though they do make a good addition to a cold bean salad.

Runner beans prefer to be planted in warm soil, so you have plenty of time in zones 7 and below to plan how you'd like to plant your runner beans.  

If you have children or grandchildren, you might like to plant the beans around a bean tepee.  Just be sure to leave an opening for the kids to enter.  Rattlesnake beans are perfect for the bean tepee as their colourful, twisted pods are fascinating to young (and old) eyes!  I didn't make the base of ours quite wide enough when I did this.  I recommend a diameter of about 10 feet.  Push poles into the soil, lean them together at the top center and bind well with twine.  You can reinforce with twine around the midsection, too.  Runner beans snake up vertically and do not need horizontal lines to grab onto, but plants like peas would.

Bean tepee filling in.

Bean tepee filled in.

 For something that doesn't take up a great deal of space, but gives an amazing yield; try growing runner beans up a single pole with multiple vertical lines running down to the ground from the center.  We use the shepherd's hook my brother made for me and all our other siblings for this every summer.  It's 7' high, impossible to uproot, and creates a visually appealing living statuary in the garden.  From 2' square of soil at its base, where the beans are planted, we yielded a bushel of beans last year!  We attached guide lines from the top of the pole to the soil in a circle for the beans to climb to the top.  At the top we ran twine to the corner of the garage.  The beans made it all the way to the corner by the end of the season!  That's about 20 feet!  I've heard of other people running twine from their house to the soil and creating a living wall that cooled the home and blocked bright sunlight in the summer months that would otherwise warm the house a great deal.  Imagine a wall of beans and scarlet flowers!

Scarlet Runner Beans growing up a 7' shepherd's hook and across twine.  

Note the size of the beans; the candle lantern is about 16" long from top to bottom.   

Here's a tip for removing the beans from the pods:  put the beans, once they are completely dry, on a tarp or in a burlap bag and walk on them!  That's A LOT easier than what I've done in the past, which left my hands cramped and my back sore!  

At the end of the season, don't yank the plants from the soil.  Instead, cut them off at the soil line and leave the roots to rot in the ground.  Beans are nitrogen fixers, meaning they pull nitrogen out of the air and convert it into food for plants.  Nodules, small bumps, will appear on the roots of beans and other nitrogen fixers (clovers and peas et.al.).  To let that nitrogen be available the following growing season, let those roots stay in the ground where the nitrogen will remain available for the next plants.  

Garden Photos August 25

I'm sorry. I feel as though I've been neglecting this blog. We're still gardening along. Pictures from today.

I suppose I could have taken the pictures after mowing the grass, but I didn't. I took the pictures, first! Haha!


How about we start with the green beans:
These are growing vertically up a twine trellis. As you can see, the leaves have been nibbled some (and sometimes the beans too.) I've never had bean beetles before this year. I don't know what my luck had been, but when I finally noticed them I had quite a few. I picked about 20 off my 8 plants in this bed and another two or three from the bean tee pee. This bed has been stressed since the beginning of the season. The soil is not right for this bed and will be changed next year. Because the plants in this bed have been stressed all year, they're more prone to insect attacks. I not only found Mexican Bean Beetles chomping these bean leaves, I found cucumber beetles on them too (but not on the cucumbers!) Go figure. My treatment: handpick them and drown them in soapy water. Haven't seen any eggs on the undersides of the leaves, so that's a good sign.

The bush beans in the same bed are much less stressed than the others, but they germinated very poorly. About 1 out of 10 germinated. Had all of them germinated, I would have enough to freeze for the rest of the year. As it stands, we've got enough for fresh eating and maybe a few more meals after the growing season. These beans are strong producers. I like to pick them on the day we'll eat them, so these are staying until tomorrow. Both the beans above are tender, stringless beans that cook up in just a couple minutes. They're great for stir-fries as they cook so quickly. Quite tasty and very light!
The bean tee pee filled in quite nicely. It's very full of rattlesnake beans. They're quite yummy! They have the traditional bean flavour but require a little more cooking time than the French Fillet beans above. Just a little, though. Later in the season, they'll probably require a much longer cooking time. I do cook them shortly after picking them, though.





It's taken the bell peppers (California Wonder) a lot longer to produce fruit than the others. They're coming along, though as you can see.

These Super Chili Peppers are VERY PRODIGIOUS PRODUCERS. I outlined all the visible peppers so you could get an idea of how many are in there. There are far more on the lower branches, and as you can see, many many blossoms still. We have three of these plants and I'd say that's two too many for us. I'll donate some to the local food banks and freecycle others. Those we keep I will dry and store for use in stir-fries. We like 'em hot!



Our sunflowers this year are ginormous! The landing on my porch is 5 feet from ground level. That's just below the height of the Canna Lilly's bloom. That center sunflower is about 14 feet high! It has numerous blossoms on it that haven't yet opened. I think my sunflowers cross-pollinated last year as these are all from my own seed stock. I had a volunteer Kong sunflower show up in my memorial bed last year -- a gift from a visiting bird. It was about 8 feet tall and had more than 30 blossoms on it. I had also planted Russian Giants which got 6-8 feet tall and had one very large central blossom, nearly a foot across. This year I've got 10 foot sunflowers with multiple blooms, some of them very large, others much smaller. Very interesting. And as you can see, one of my Cannas bloomed! Yay!

These are "only" about eight feet tall. The birds love them. To the right is a giant blossom that has been a favourite haunt of the neighborhood birds lately.


Check out the sunflowers growing through the porch rails. These ones do have pale petals. I don't know why. The birds still think they're good eating. Anyone placing bets on how many volunteer sunflowers I'll have next year? Next year I won't plant them here. I will, if I'm allowed, surround that telephone pole out at the curb with them. That'll make the birds happy! No, I don't harvest the seeds for myself, though I love sunflower seeds. It's just so much darned work! I buy my sunflower seeds already hulled, thank you! I do harvest heads for seed saving, though. Anyone want some?



I'm always amazed by cucumber growth spurts that happen overnight. This thing was about 4 inches long yesterday morning. Then we had some rains in the afternoon and today it's 8 inches long. Amazing! I'll pick it and another will take its place in no time!

Hubby's old work boots recycled into hen & chick planters. These were just planted this year, too. Man, those things reproduce fast! I'll have another pair on a lower step next year!

Check out the beautiful Chinese Lanterns! Wow! They're nice sized, too. I planted these last year and the lanterns averaged about an inch long, one and a half inches around. They're triple that this year! And what great colour! I'll be harvesting these soon. (Trim the stalks, trim away the leaves. Spray the lanterns with hairspray, and hang to dry. They'll retain their colour and make a lovely holiday decoration.)

A closeup of some of the lanterns. With my hand there, you can get an idea of how big those lanterns are. Chinese lanterns are invasive and will take over a garden. We planted them in a whiskey barrel to keep them in check. SO far so good. I think it helps that we harvest the lanterns (there is an edible berry inside the lantern, which also contains numerous seeds. The berries are like tiny tomatoes with hundreds of seeds in each.) I don't eat the berries. They taste yucky.