Beans – French, Runner & Borlotti

Growing beans in a pot

Beans were the second crop I ever grew, after tomatoes.

I only had the tiniest little veg area, so I grew some runner beans in Grans old dolly tub. I really don’t know what she’d have made of that!

Now that we’ve moved house and created a kitchen garden, with six raised vegetable beds. I grow tulips in Granny’s old dolly tub, I even managed to find a matching one at the local auction house.

Space to grow more beans

Now having so much more space, I grow three types of climbing beans, French, Borlotti, and the good old ‘Runner’. 

I grow two varieties of French bean, a purple one ‘Blauhilde’ and a golden one ‘Necktargold’. They don’t taste any different, but their contrasting colours look good.

Borlotti beans are worth growing just for their gorgeous coloured pods. Most people grow them for their shelled beans. But if you pick them young you can eat the pod, just like any other bean.

Growing beans is easy……

I’ve always sown the beans directly into the ground on May Day bank holiday. I did this even with the handful of runner beans in the dolly tub. This has worked nicely for me for more years than I care to remember, and I’ve always told people how easy it is!

Until this May bank holiday! It was so cold that I sowed them a week later. I waited for them to appear, and for the first time ever, they didn’t germinate. I can only imagine that it was just too cold.

I sowed another batch at the end of May and fortunately they grew. It did mean though, that we’ve had a lot less beans and incredibly late. We normally have more beans than we can keep up with, and have to give some away.

Eating the beans

Over the years we’ve come up with more and more recipes. Last year we starting using the raw beans to make an easy and delicious Bean Salad , follow the link for the recipe.

Mainly though we use them to make meals to freeze. I’ve never felt very inspired by a bag of beans in the freezer, whereas homemade ready meals don’t last long at all. Especially our favourite bean curry inspired by a recipe from Ottolenghi’s ‘Plenty’ book !

Drying the beans

With all of our beans, we eat the whole pod in the early part of the season, but as it gets later, they can get a bit tough and stringy. Once we reach that point, we leave them on the vine to produce bigger beans and dry off.

Once they make a rattle sound when shaken, they are ready to be collected.

They are very easy to shell as the dry pods just crack open, it’s actually quite therapeutic. This year I had a bad back, so my under gardener ( other name, husband) picked them for me.

As I sat podding them I had another little helper. Elise thought they were a great new toy, and merrily spread the pods around the house.

Once the beans were shelled, I left them open in a warm dry place for just over a week. It’s really important to dry them properly, otherwise they will go mouldy.

Once they were completely dry, I put them into a jar, to store in a cool dark place.

They are perfect for winter casseroles and curries. You just need to remember to soak them for around four hours in plain cold water.

Stay safe & happy gardening.