I just saw a photo (on the right ->) of someone harvesting butter beans. They look great BTW .
It suddenly occurred to me that I have no idea where butter beans are from (bean plants, obviously - I'm not that dim ). Is it a type of runner bean, or broad bean or what. Would I be able to grow them? We don't have much success with beans, they require a lot of tlc up here. Do you just sow a bean from the pantry? What is their real name - I've never seen butter beans in seed catalogues).
So many questions, so little time......
Maggie
Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin
Butter beans are a form of runner bean. I grew them for the first time this year. Perhaps you can grow them from shop bought beans, I guess it depends on whether and how they have been treated against bean weevil. I got mine from Franchi seeds but I have seen them advertised in another catalogue.
Confusingly Franchi do two beans with the exactly the same name, a white butter bean and a similar coloured bean. They sent me the wrong one although I expressly asked for the white one, so they then sent the right one and I ended up with both.
They can be used as a runner bean but the pods are short and coarse skinned. The other problem I've found is that despite very vigorous growth and masses of flowers they are slow to set and the beans to fill. So even now, mid-October, very few pods are full. There are lots still on their way and it is still flowering but how many pods will actually come to anything before the weather stops them I don't know.
I sowed them in rootrainers a couple of weeks late, I should have sown them late April (same time as my runners), but they didn't go in until mid-May planting out the first week of June. The weather was hot and dry until August when they seemed to take off a bit.
I'm thinking that they need a long season, so starting in mid-April (this may be a problem the further north you are) but like all runner beans, they also prefer warm moist weather.
Graham,I'd be really interested to see how you get on if you dry these,how well they last,etc,what they taste like etc.I've seen them in the Franchi catalogue,and that reinforced my thoughts that they would be 'marginal' uphere.I should,god willing,be in 'Franchi land' for the beginning of next spring,and I'll definatly have a go at them,cos I love them,and they make great goat feed. Jerry.
Thanks, chaps. We'd have to grow them in the polytunnel anyway - too windy to set the flowers otherwise Don't know if we'll have a go though. The space may be better used on something more expensive to buy.
Maggie
Never doubt that you can change history. You already have. Marge Piercy
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin
Ooooh I can see red's photo now too - they LOOK like butter beans. Can't get them here in France - and if you can grow them in Devon red then I can grow them in Brittany. Right another new veg to try next year along with baccy (yeah OK, plant not veg!). I'm enjoying trying new things.
Well they're allowed to in England and the tax is even higher there, but here who cares, we're supposed to flout any rules here in France just for the sake of it, aren't we? And who is going to see what's in my veg patch out here in the sticks? Anyway I might just be growing it for the flowers.
They do grow to biggish plants with big leaves and I've no idea how many plants you'd need, but as I'm doing this more for fun than anything else I'm not that bothered. I do smoke but can't smoke roll ups as they give me a dreadful chest, so think it will be just for one or two fags just for a laugh. I'm having visions more of those herbal cigarettes that were around in the 70s/80s which were absolutely vile (and incidentally my Mum was banned from smoking in her local pub cos everyone thought she was smoking wacky baccy!).
Well I grew butter beans for the first time this year. I planted about 30 and got back about 600 beans, that's 20 to 1, which was better than I was anticipating at one stage as they were much slower and less prolific than runner beans. They made lots of growth and flowers, but few flowers seem to set.
We had an early frost this year, mid-October, which brought things to an end a bit earlier than normal and meant that there was a lot of pods that didn't get the chance to fully ripen.
Cultivation is essentiallly the same as for runner beans, but you can just leave the pods unpicked until they have filled with beans. The pods that had ripened on the plant produced beautiful large white butter beans. Those that hadn't ripened produced slightly greenish beans, unfortunately these I guess kind of oxidised and went dirty white, not at all attractive. So next year, will not pick pods that are not fully ripened or if I have to avoid them spoiling in the autumn rains (although they have quite tough skins so this might not be a problem), I'll hang them up till they dry before shelling them.
This is only the second year I've tried growing beans to store and living and learning. Last year all our dried beans were spoilt by bean weevil. This year because of the early frost, al ot of beans where shelled before the pods were completely ripened/dry and although the beans appeared dry (laid out on newspaper) many immediately started to sprout.
In order to kill the bean weevil, I had intended to freeze them for a couple of days, but now I think (except for the ones I'm saving for next years seed) it is probably better to whack them in the oven for 15-20mins, as this will kill any weevil and dry them out properly.
Would like to hear anyone elses experience in saving dried beans.
Graham,I'm waiting to hear YOUR experiences! I was hoping you'd follow up that original post,next season this is my main project.I've always sown runners in early april,if I was to start the butter beans earlier d'you think they'd stand a better chance of maturing? OJ
Oldjerry, I normally wait until towards the end of April to sow my runner beans, starting them off in roottrainers and planting them out in May. I've found if I plant them out any earlier they either get blasted by the weather or eaten by slugs.
Because my roottrainers were taken up by my runners and climbing french beans, I didn't get round to sowing the butter beans until the 2nd week of May. We then had a very dry spell, about 12 weeks without rain, so they didn't make much progress and any flowers that did appear didn't set. It was only when the rains came that they started to make progress, finally thwarted as I say by an early frost in October.
Starting them off a bit earlier would help, but how early depends a bit on how much protection you can give them, from the weather (April is often good these days, but often turns nasty in May) and slugs.
Although I will continue with them next year, dried beans are not such an easy option as say growing over winter and freezing broad beans, and butter beans not so easy as Barlotti beans which mature more quickly.
I grew a double row about 3m long of butter beans, I think you could easily double that to make a real quantity to give a few good meals through the winter. That compares with runner beans, where the same 3m can absolutely swamp us with beans for several months.
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). Is it a type of runner bean, or broad bean or what. Would I be able to grow them? We don't have much success with beans, they require a lot of tlc up here. Do you just sow a bean from the pantry? What is their real name - I've never seen butter beans in seed catalogues).
(thanks)
Think of all the tax the government will lose!