French beans are an extremely important crop for us as they are extremely prolific and versatile. They freeze well too, but when we froze them we always found we had most of them left in the freezer in June when our new crops were available, so now we only eat them fresh as they taste much better.
There are two types of French bean – climbing and dwarf. Dwarf beans are perfect for small spaces and early crops, growing well in containers and in the ground.
Climbing beans need tall, sturdy supports and do best in the ground, but can also be grown in large containers. As they grow vertically, climbers produce a large crop in a small area of ground.
Dwarf beans are quick to grow, but only crop for a few weeks, so make repeat sowings for a summer-long supply. Climbing beans take longer to reach cropping stage, but will produce beans over a longer period, from mid-summer to early autumn if picked regularly. We think a mix is best.
I use a rating system to help me decide what to grow and it considers lots of factors, but the main ones are how tasty it is, healthy it is to eat, how expensive it is to buy, how big it's harvest is, when it's harvest period is and whether I can buy it organically and if not how much it's sprayed.
French beans score very highly in this system. They taste great, are fairly expensive to buy, extremely prolific and provide a regular harvest over a long period of time. I rarely see them available grown organically.
French beans are extremely prolific and popular for freezing too. We find that 2m2 of dwarf beans is enough for a family of four, eaten fresh, a single 2m row of climbing beans is enough too, but more are needed if freezing/drying. So that’s about 10 dwarf plants/person or about 7 climbing plants/person. If you only grow dwarf beans you will need multiple successions.
Since they freeze well, many people will want to grow 2-3 times this many, although we find that we rarely get around to eating frozen food, so we now only grow for eating fresh.
Both dwarf and climbing French beans will grow in containers, but dwarf varieties are the most suitable. However the yield from a container is small, so for my early crop in the polytunnel I prefer climbing beans. Both types require large containers though. Dwarf beans can provide a useful harvest from a 35 litre container, but both types will benefit from a 50 litre container, which is the largest I’m able to move around.
French beans grow close to their full size, then flower. The flowers are self-fertile, so they don’t need insects to pollinate them. Dwarf beans have a short harvest window, of a few weeks, climbing French beans last for 6-8 weeks and sometimes longer. Runner beans have an even longer harvest window.
A mix of beans will provide you with a very long harvest window, from early May until mid-October for me, starting with Broad beans and ending with runner beans. Add in pea and bean tips and you can be harvesting from legume plants for the whole year, see my year round growing guide for details!
<aside> 💡 For more details on the model that I use for describing harvest periods (first earlies, second earlies etc) please see the chapter on my growing framework
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