It would seem beans are a ubiquitous but cultural vegetable because every country has their favourites. Most grow them but what type is determined by climate, soil conditions and long-time ancestral preferences.

Beans are a legume and with their nodular, nitrogen fixing roots help to put nitrogen back into the soil. They are very much, a give and take vegetable. High in protein, for those who prefer less meat, they are an important component of diet. I don’t think coffee beans can be included in the protein.

In most vegetable gardens where I live, it is green bush and yellow wax beans that I see the most. However my personal favourite are climbing Pole Beans, specifically Scarlet Runners. These climbers, along with a giant, the important elements in the fairy tale, ’Jack and The Beanstalk,’ and produce masses of scarlet red blooms before they form fruit, which we call a vegetable, the bean.  Another bonus for bird lovers is that Humming birds love them.

Fothergill and The Biking Gardener photos

Beans unlike their relatives, peas, are frost sensitive. As they are a fairly long season crop, I found the best way to grow them was to start in compostable pots indoors. When the second set of leaves had grown and danger of frost was past, I would plant them still in their little pots into the ground with the a collar of a yogurt container, the bottom cut out. This could be slipped over the top, when planted and would further protect them from cooler outside temperatures and wind. Runner beans in their initial days outside are sensitive to cold and wet combined. Beans need warmth, full sun and regular water to do well.

Runner beans obviously also need something to climb on and bees to pollinate them. Another beauty of these beans is that they can be combined in a flower garden as an ornamental. Lattice or a tipi of long branches tied at the top work well. Traditionally, when planted in rows, they are planted between two rows of 6 – 7ft stakes secured at the top with more stakes laid across the top horizontally, like the letter ‘A’ but with the horizontal stakes at the top to join each pair of stakes. 

Indigenous peoples of the Americas would grow climbing beans with the ‘three sisters method’. Sweet Corn would support the beans while squash would grow at ground level. This a very economical use of space but requires rich soil to feed all three.

Above: My daughter in her Ft. Steele Garden. Two Sisters, Sunflowers, Scarlet Runner Beans and some Dill!

Pole beans are usually longer and fatter than bush beans. It is important to pick them before the seeds become large and hard as that is when the beans are tough. Picked when young and tender they have a delicious flavor. I have a bean slicer now.  The beans are hand fed as you turn the handle and the result are beautiful ‘frenched’ beans. Just as many of us remember being handed a load of peas to shell as a child I was also handed the beans to top, tail and slice by hand.  

These beans, I think are a wonderful addition to a garden with young children as they offer so many learning opportunities, context to ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, the adaptations plants use to climb, the attraction to bees and Humming Birds as well as being fun to grow and delicious to eat. Left to mature, it is fun to see how long a bean can be grown or how many seeds there can be in one pod.