Who's Been Eating my Beans?
I kept looking out for signs of my first runner bean St George after such a wonderful show of flowers, but they just didn't come...
Then upon closer inspection all I could see were little stalks where the pollinated flowers should have been growing little beans.
Just this one baby bean is visible. Now who could be eating my beans? Slugs? Snails? Birds? Mice? Does anyone have any ideas?
Better news elsewhere. Here are my very first tomatoes of the year. These are Sungold tomatoes grown in the greenhouse. They tasted fantastic, the long tomato gap is finally over!
Courgettes are really going well, left to right, Defender, Black Forest, Soleil. Picked, photographed, steamed and eaten all within 10 minutes! Yum!
posted by Matron @ 5:43 PM
10 Comments:
Hi
Perhaps the dry weather is causing the beans to drop?
Are your beans being pollinated? It seems odd in this weather, but that could be your problem.
Umm it looks as though the flowers haven't set 'fruit' rather than something actually eating them. I've had this happen before where the first flowers haven't actually produced beans.
I think the weather can affect this e.g if it's windy or particularly dry. I've read you can spray the flowers with water ('mist' style water rather than full-on hose type!) to help the plants produce beans.
Oh, I've just seen other people have already answered! But the blog didn't show them. Must be the problem I've read about on other people's sites.
I don't think they are being eaten - runners like cool wet Summers and french beans like hot dry ones. Grow both and you cover your bets. I would suggest an hour under the sprinkler every evening (for the beans, not you)!
Sorry to hear about the beans, I need to check mine out now!
too much sunshine can make them abort
oh, putting the beans to one side things are looking great. First tomatoes; wow ours are minisule!
Word verification is 'gruck' - I like that :)
Interesting replies. My beans have definitely not been lacking from water at the roots. They get oodles of hose and buckets each day because I know 'you cannont over water runner beans'. I have not been spraying the foliage and flowers at all, so maybe a light spray every day will aid pollination. Let's see...
I have exactly the same problem with my beans. It has been very windy of late, but they have been kept well watered. I have two batches in different locations in the garden and both are suffering from the same problem. I have been misting them in the evenings too. I'm pretty sure they are not being eaten as the flowers are still evident on the ground. So it does seem that they are just not setting, but why I have no idea, unless it was just caused by the wind. If the current flowers set, now that the wind has dropped, then I guess that will answer the question.
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