Best bean variety for pots

emmiecooper78

Hi all. New to growing veg but I’d like to give beans a try. I don’t have a large garden so would need to use a large planter. What are the best bean varieties for this method and do you have any tips for me?  Thanks all.

emmiecooper78

Fabulous. Thanks. Any tips on the size of pot and type of compost?  

nick615

Emmiecooper78 -  For a single year experiment, you could always try 2 or 3 car tyres on top of one another to create a temporary bed. put a couple of inches of newspaper at the bottom to hold moisture and soil/compost on top.  If you like the results, then next year you can do something more permanent.

Fatsia

I used to only have a hardscaped courtyard and grew bog standard runner beans (scarlet emperor/painted lady) in largish pots up a wigwam. Used 2/3 multi purpose compost and 1/3 soil (for added moisture retention). It was very ornamental and got quite a few beans off them. I did feed them liquid seaweed or tomato feed at regular intervals and plenty of water. Im sure dwarf varieties would probably give a better performance though. I believe one dwarf runner variety is called 'hestia'  

strelitzia32

If you have space in a conservatory or somewhere with plenty of light and well protected, a relatively small 20ltr pot and a wigwam of bamboo, plus 2 seeds of any decent climbing bean (Blue Lake, Cobra) will give you more beans than you can eat! Sprout 2 seeds in a module and that will be plenty, sprout as normal somewhere warm (7 days), then repot into your large pot when ready. Simply pinch out when they reach the top of your structure, pick regularly. A deep pot is more important than a wide one. I do exactly this in a conservatory and a 30ltr bucket, I get hundreds of beans through to October.

Zoomer44

Growing runner or french beans in a large planter up a wigwam would give you lots of height and would certainly provide you with more beans than dwarf varieties and you would only need to sow once. 

Scarlet Emperor and painted lady are good reliable runner bean varieties.

I prefer french beans, Cobra and blue lake are good varieties and produce slender green pods. If you want colour Borlotto beans are a climbing bean and produce red/green pods.

If you decide to grow dwarf beans, amethyst, a dwarf french bean produces purple pods and Sonesta a dwarf French bean produces yellow pods. Coloured pods are a lot easier to see and also nice and decorative.

.....and if you can't decide why not grow both dwarf and climbing beans in two planters.