Growing Green Beans

Beans, glorious beans!

Green beans are a family favourite staple on the cooler months dinner plates and now with so many varieties available, you can make this super nutritious vegetable, a homegrown one too! Green beans are eaten with the bean seeds still encloded before they have fully matured, this is what sets them apart from pea pods. Beans contain a hard strong that runs the length of the bean, this is removed before cooking or can be consumed if cut into smaller pieces. Green beans are versatile and sold all around the world, fresh is always best of course but they can be steamed, canned, frozen or can be popped into stir frys, soups, stews and casseroles!

There are 2 main types of green beans that can be grown, the dwarf style is a short style of bush that doesnt require supports. Dwarf styles generally mature and produce all of their fruit quite quickly, and then will stop activity all together! They love the sun and don't like too much frost but are a super easy to grow.

Pole beans are climbers and produce a twisting vine which requires supports such as poles or trellis. These beans are easy to grow, love the sun but don't tolerate frost very well. Picking the beans young helps to avoid too much string on the vegetable.

How to choose the best variety for you

Broad Coles Prolific Bean Seed
Vigorous plants that grow to approximately 1.3 metres. Bean pods are approx 20-25cm long. Beans can be harvested when they have reached full size but are still green.

Dwarf French Tenderness Bean Seed
A well known tried and true variety. Slender, medium green beans produced on strong plants. Easy to harvest and ideal for freezing.

Broad Exhibition Long Pod Bean Seed
Perfect for risottos, pasta stews, soups, mash, salsa and salads

Broad Imperial Green Bean Seed
Broad Beans are great in stir-fries or can be added to casseroles and stews. Not too bad steamed with a little butter, salt & pepper as well. A welcome vegetable addition to the dark months of winter and early spring.

Climbing Kentucky Pole Bean Seed
This is an annual variety that you need to sow every year. An old fashioned, but vigorous and heavy yielding variety. Long, straight pods up to 20cm in length.

Dwarf Butter Cherokee Bean Seeds
A delicious yellow dwarf bean that produces an abundant supply. A great item for adding colour to the meal. The standard 'Butter Bean'. An extremely popular variety.

Dwarf French Greencrop Bean Seed
Fantastic crops of tender beans, virtually stringless. Dwarf French Bean pods are deep green and great for freezing. Pods are slightly flattened in shape. Terrific yields and easy to grow.

Dwarf French Top Crop Bean Seed
Dwarf French Beans are easy to grow and give superb yields for a small amount of effort.

Scarlett Runner Goliath Bean Seed
Perennial bean, which ensures it crops year after year. Vigorous vines produce long flat pods that are stringless if picked young. Terrific yields.

Scarlett Runner Stringless Bean Seed
Perennial bean; that means years of cropping. Beans stay tender on the plant for a long time. This bean requires staking or a trellis as a form of support.

Shiny Fardenlosa Bean Seed
Fantastic stringless variety with shiny, bright green pods. This highly prolific, early and mid season variety is renowned for its long, flat and glossy dark green pods. This variety can also be grown in a greenhouse.

Gourmet Climbing Butter Bean
When kept well picked Climbing Butter Beans produce more beans per plant than dwarf varieties. Delicious slightly flat, light yellow butter beans that require support.

Gourmet Dwarf Borlitti Red Rooster Bean Seed
Unique cream and cranberry coloured pods & seeds. Borlotti beans are also known as cranberry beans or French horticultural beans. Beans can be eaten as normal. French Beans or pods can be shelled and the seed dried.

Gourmet Dwarf Royal Burgundy Bean Seed
Rich purple coloured pods. As its name suggests, Bean Royal Burgundy has a striking, rich burgundy coloured pod. Inside the pod is a rich green and when cooked the outer pod transforms back to green.