French Beans – Dainty and Delicious.

French Beans, in my opinion, are one of the most delicious of the beans. There used to be only one type, that are now called bush beans or dwarf beans, but now you can also grow them as climbing plants.

Climbing plants make considerable sense, particularly for people short of space. Growing upwards means you get a larger harvest for a smaller ground space. However, they are later to crop than the shorter varieties.

I always sow bush beans indoors and plant them out when they are a couple of inches tall. This ensures I am not feeding the mice. I plant them about 6 ins apart which means that when they finish growing they are touching each other. This saves work weeding. However, it makes harvesting interesting. – you’re sure to leave a few pods by mistake. I harvest when the pods are small. Although this may not give me the largest harvest (this is in doubt as the more you harvest, the more pods grow) the beans are beautifully tender.

With the diferent colour french beans available now, a patch of bush french beans can look very attractive. One of the benefits of growing french beans as apposed to runner beans is that they do not need bees for pollination so that in cold weather they will produce pods rather more readily.

There is one other bean which is now available as seeds. This is a fairly new addition  and is the Haricot bean. I have never grown this, but I note that Thompson and Morgan offer it as a dwarf plant or a climber. It can be used young as a green bean or podded and stored as a haricot bean. Useful particularly in soups.