Beans - good news and bad

The news from the Bean department is a mixture of good and bad.

The Runners are looking strong - no problems so far - and the plants are climbing rapidly up their bamboo poles:

In theory, you are supposed to pinch out the main growing tip of the plant at about this stage, in order to encourage the side-shoots to form, but I never do. I wait until the main shoot has reached the top of my support-system and then pinch it out. I always find that plenty of side-shoots grow in any case.

The Climbing French Beans (Cobra) are not looking so good. They are always slower off the mark than the Runners, but this year they are looking a bit weak and weedy all round. The foliage is very pale too. Despite applying the "Grow Your Own" nematodes, a couple of the French beans have succumbed to weevils of some sort.  A healthy bean plant looks like this, with the leaves held erect:

When maggots eat into the roots of a plant, the first sign you see is that the leaves droop. They also lose their gloss, and begin to look dull (and lifeless, which of course they effectively are!)

In the photo above, you can see that I have deployed one of my spares, because the plant on the left looks doomed. This is the point at which the wisdom of sowing some extra seeds in pots or modules becomes apparent. I have also sowed a couple of extra seeds at the base of each cane as a further backup. If the original plants do OK I will just remove the spares.

At the other end of the bed which holds the Cobra beans I planted the only 3 of the "Veitch's" beans that germinated (from a sowing of 7). At this stage they look pretty similar to the Cobra.

One of the three succumbed to the maggots, so I have sown some more seeds "in situ", but there is no sign of them yet. Likewise there was still no sign of the "Meriviglia di Venezia" yellow beans I sowed at the same time (30 May). It could be that the bean crop is a little under par this year - but having said that, if all the seeds I sowed do eventually germinate, we will be inundated!

The first row of the Broad Beans (the Aquadulce ones) have some pods on now, though not as many as I would have expected. Each "truss" only has 2 or 3 beans, whereas I would normally expect 4 or 5. Perhaps their quality will make up for the lack of quantity?

All of the Broad Beans this year (3 types) look less vigorous than normal. The stems are thinner and less able to support themselves than in previous years, so I have had to use a lot of string! Maybe this is a result of the funny weather. Or maybe they just don't like the bed in which they are growing. It is to an extent overshadowed by trees, and the roots of those trees probably take up more than their fair share of the available water - and there hasn't been so much of that this year.

As you can see, I have removed the net which was covering this bed, because I think the danger of serious fox damage has receded. Removing the net will also contribute towards the provision of extra light. I think I'll get the hose-pipe out too and give the beans a good drink.