Those first French Beans

July 14, 2008 | easygardener

I so look forward to the first crop of French beans from the allotment. It’s an added bonus if the beans look attractive and my Polish Purple Stringless certainly do. It’s a flat bean with numerous purple splashes, although it does go green on cooking. The colour also makes them very easy to see when picking. They are from the Heritage Seed Library.

french bean, Polish Purple Stringless

The flowers are a rich pink and equally attractive. I wish they lasted longer.

french-bean, Polish Purple Stringless - flower

Then they fade to a delicate milky purple. Vegetables can be pretty too!

french-bean, Polish Purple Stringless - faded flower

5 comments

Gravatar 1 Karen { 07.15.08 at 12:49 am }

Lovely. I had my first French bean flower to-day - and you have pods all ready! :)
Karen

Gravatar 2 Victoria { 07.15.08 at 8:17 pm }

Hi, I wasn’t sure where to leave this reply (on my blog? on your blog?), so settled for your place. Thanks so much for leaving a comment on my Bloom Day post. I just wanted to say, if you’re thinking of getting a trachelospermum, it should be fine in the south-east. My advice is to get the biggest one you can afford, and get it IN FLOWER. (Now’s a really good time, as you probably know.) The first one I bought was a titchy little thing from Wisley (I was trying to save money), not in flower, and it never blossomed. The second one I got cost four times as much, was four times as big and has looked fabulous ever since. Oh, and they need a bit of watering during the first season until they get their feet under the table.

Gravatar 3 Matron { 07.16.08 at 9:36 am }

Those look wonderful, I love hearing ab0ut old varieties from the HSL - those look like borlotti beans, and a plus to be able to see them easily.

Gravatar 4 Karin A { 07.16.08 at 9:52 am }

Hi there! Thanks for visiting and commenting on my blog. The garden fair I visited was so great. :) Those beans are beautiful, both the bean and the flower. I think every spring - this year I must grow beans but in the end I only have sweet-peas and thats peas! :D

Gravatar 5 easygardener { 07.17.08 at 4:45 pm }

Karen - I’m sure your beans will catch up fast!

Victoria - Thanks for the advice. I’ll be visiting a nursery soon.

Matron - I agree the HSL is a wonderful source of interesting seeds. Not sure my beans are borlottis though - I always assume borlottis to have red markings and mine are definitely purple. I could be wrong of course!

Karin - Thanks for coming. Garden visiting is so enjoyable isn’t it. I wish I could do more of it.

Leave a Comment