Growing Runner Beans
(continued - page 2)

How To Sow Your Runner Beans
Prepare the bed in March to allow the soil time to settle before planting. Do this by thoroughly digging to a spade and a half's depth, incorporating as much organic material as possible. Add a couple of handfuls of bonemeal per square metre (yard). The aim is to produce a soil which is as water retentive as possible to a good depth.

Sow the seeds a week before the last frost date ( late April ) - use a trowel to dig out a shallow drill 5cm (2in) deep. Where more than one row is being planted, each row should be 1.5m (5ft) apart. Runner bean seeds have a high germination rate of 85%, and for this reason should be sown thinly, one seed every 15cm (6in), to be thinned out to a final spacing of one seedling every 30cm (1ft) about 3 weeks after sowing. To be doubly sure, sow several seeds at the end of the row for filling in any spaces where the seed has failed to come up in the row. After sowing, water the bed well if conditions are at all dry.

Do not soak the seeds prior to sowing in attempt to encourage germination. Runner beans have a high germination rate, so do not need this assistance. Worse, soaking the beans will encourage Halo Blight (see section on pests and diseases later on). Examine the beans as you sow them, and reject any which are wrinkled, disfigured or have yellow spots on them. 

Getting An Early Start
Runner Beans can be given a head start (about four  weeks) by sowing them inside and / or under cloches - click here for more detailed information. Simply place the poly-tunnel in position two weeks before sowing (to warm up the soil), then sow the seed three or four weeks earlier than normal. Click here to buy a poly-tunnel or cloche from GardenAction's preferred online supplier.

Supporting Runner Beans
Runner beans grow to about 1.8m (6 foot) high and they definitely need support. The idea is to provide a structure which their tendrils can grow round and pull the plant up. 

The most attractive form of support is a wigwam - four or five bamboo canes tied together at the top will be sufficient. The growth at the top will be a bit crowded, but this structure will still produce a good crop of beans.

It is a good idea to twist some gardening twine round the bamboo canes, this will give the growing plants more to grab hold of.

Where space is really short, this type of structure can be used for container growing runner beans. In this case, insert one cane centrally in the container, tie six or so lengths of garden twine to the top of the cane and secure the other ends of the twine to the edge of the container. Plant three or four seeds, which will then grow up the twine. The plants will need their tips pinching out when they reach the top of the twine.

Other methods are to erect a criss-cross of canes, each pair tied together at the top, or simply a line of canes connected together with mesh netting. Both are illustrated in the diagrams below. Finally, don't forget that runner beans can be be grown up an existing fence which has been covered with mesh netting.