Start a French revolution and you’ll get food and flowers too
variety ‘Purple Teepee’ which has long dark purple pods or the climbing ‘Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco’ which has red splashes on the pods.
French beans are tender so this means you need to start them off indoors now for planting out in the garden at the end of this month or when the possibility of frost has gone in your area. While getting seeds sown indoors, you can also start preparing the ground where you will eventually be planting them outdoors.
Choose your sunniest position and preferably sheltered because they dislike cold windy positions. Enhance the soil by digging in well rotted manure or garden compost. This will help moisture retention in summer which is important when beans are forming. You will also need a support structure for the beans to climb, unless you grow dwarf varieties which won’t require this.
The most simple DIY method is creating a wigwam with bamboo canes and tying in at the top but you can also create an A-frame and use wire as supports.
Plant indoors now into root trainers or small pots and place on a sunny windowsill or into the greenhouse for germination. As seedling growth takes off, you can start to acclimatise them to outdoor life by putting them outdoors during the day for a couple of hours. By the end of May and start of June they will be ready for planting directly into the ground and will have a better chance of warding off slugs and snails than if you directly sow them into the ground. You’ll still need to watch out for slugs and snails initially so have beer traps or the like ready to capture them.
Plenty of H2O is key when they are in flower as producing the pods is thirsty work.
Harvest as soon as they are ready in July and regular harvesting will encourage the plant to keep production going. ‘Cobra’ is a good variety to start with as it is a reliable yielder and you could be picking and eating French beans until early autumn.
They’re delicious and also act as an attractive climber