Offbeat beans

There’s beans that we all know and love, and then there’s other beans that maybe we should ge to know. Rob Smith takes a tour of some unusual bean varieties well worth growing

Pretty much every allotment grower or gardener has had a go at growing some sort of bean during their gardening life, even if they didn’t like them. From runners to French to broad beans, there are lots of varieties to choose from to keep the most avid bean fan happy; yet did you know there are lots more types of beans which we can grow at home and they are really tasty?

Runner beans have to be the most popular type of bean that are grown by kitchen gardeners up and down the country, with some gardeners swearing by the red-flowered varieties, while others prefer the white; both claiming they give better results and that they produce more beans than the other. However, what would you say if I told you there was a runner bean that never dropped its flowers or failed to crop and that you would always get a guaranteed harvest from your plants?

SUPER RUNNERS

Introducing the ‘super runners’, a British-bred cross between a runner bean and a French bean, producing self-pollinating plants which set beans even in poor conditions or when there are hardly any pollinators around! If you’ve ever suffered from plants aborting their flowers and not producing beans because of poor weather and lack of insects, super runners are for you! No matter if you want a red flower (‘Firestorm’), white flower (‘Moonlight’), or bi-colored flower (‘Tenderstar’), these incredible plants crop fantastically and their totally stringless beans taste amazing.

BUTTER BEANS