Runner Bean Trials

Each year we, amongst others, do the veg and flowers trials for Which? Gardening. They contacted us and asked if they could send their photographer round so they could include our beans in the magazine.

I thought it was a bit early in the summer to send him round as it was the third week in July but thought that maybe they needed to get it in for an early copy date. So round came Charlie Bright (has photographed a lot of famous people) and we got on very well.

He took lots of photos and sent some of them to us and we waited to see whether they would publish one. We waited - and waited and last week the magazine arrived with a picture of Mrs Shiney and the beans. As it had been nine months we had forgotten about it until the magazine arrived.

The beans we were trialling were 'Tenderstar' and they published a blurb along with the picture.



Of course, the picture doesn't look posed!

The blurb (edited slightly):-

"In Spring 2020, 933 Which? Gardening memebers sowed runner bean/French bean cross 'Tenderstar'. Almost everyone reported good germination, but only half liked the flavour. Four in ten would grow it again.

In their trials (they do the trials as well) the beans were short with large seeds and rather stringy, and the furry skin wasn't pleasant to eat. The yield was disappointing, being one of the lowest of all the varieties they grew, at 5.6kg from 12 plants.

Member Mrs Shiney started off her seeds in a heated propagatorand grew on her seedlings before hardening off and planting out mid-May, picking her first beans at the beginning of July. She grows several varietiesof beans, selling the produce for charity, and 'Tenderstar', although flowering earlier than the othersshe was growing, was soon outstripped. She liked the bi-coloured flowers, though and said she would probably grow them again."

We wouldn't grow them for the bean but the flowers were quite attractive. We also found that the blackfly preferred them to the other beans.

We grow our beans through black porous membrane which warms up the ground (we can plant out a bit earlier), keeps the weeds away and virtually no slugs etc.

We also train our beans up the poles and across overhead to give us a bigger crop. We don't pinch out the plants at all so we get a good 14ft of plant. They need a lot more watering.

By August the overhead is solid with plant, flower and beans that dangle down and easy for picking.

'Tenderstar' were quite a short bean




Especially compared to some of the other varieties we grow.

 

Superstar celebrity Mrs Shiney

 

Brilliant and what lovely photographs

 

Mrs Shiney said "Thank you"