Runner Beans 'Mergoles'

So its fairly evident by now that the mother is a fruity lady.  Pears, plums and apples get her excited, if she was a bug she would be a fruit fly.  Vegetables she leaves mainly to me, taking more of an advisory role.  There is but one exception; runner beans.  She has a need for a little runner bean patch every year which I think stems from my granddad.  Whenever we visited during runner bean season we would leave with a huge carrier bag of runner beans; I spent a lot of time until I was ten slicing them into colanders.  In the mother's opinion a bought runner bean just doesn't cut the mustard, so now she grows them.

To be honest I only really got involved at picking time but I did keep an eye on proceedings, mainly through my camera.  I would have been more involved, but I had enough on my plate or at least I hoped to eventually! The beans she planted were actually old and well past their planting time.  I tried to grow them myself but planted ten beans or so and only had two germinate, declared the beans duff and gave up on them.  The mother however laughs in the face of 'plant before end' dates, planted a whole load and had virtually every single one come up.  Sometimes that woman is hate-able.
The variety was 'Mergoles', I didn't chose them so I can't tell you what appealed.

Runner beans have a rather menacing twirl to their climbing I think, like they might
 strangulate whatever it is they are climbing up

She planted her beans in their own special 'patch', if we can call it that, as I told her my patch was fully booked.  By 'patch' I mean a cramped two feet of soil at the front of a border in front of some roses.  I believe her plan was for them to climb up the fence behind them, so of course they did something completely different.  They started climbing up some wooden poles she had provided, produce from a pruning session although of what Im not sure, got to around shoulder height and then made off.  Tendrils reached out bridging the gap between border and apple tree and then merrily knitted themselves through all the branches.  The ones at the back went for the Camellia instead. Whoosh, and they were gone; eight feet up into the air vanishing round behind the bush to visit my neighbour.  Harvesting was going to be fun.

Having said I didn't like the colour they have produced a rather arty picture here,
but still in my opinion look tobacco stained, sorry Mergoles

The beans had a good covering of flowers, although I can't say I was a fan of their colour.  The flowers themselves were fine when they finally came out, but the buds were a faint yellowy cream that reminded me of a the colour white walls go around a heavy smoker.
Despite complaining that all her baby beans were falling off, she had tonnes of them.  I love a good baby runner bean, they are so cute and curly like little spirals or upside down question marks.  I love the way they gently uncurl as they grow into huge long beans.  I also like the formation, one behind the other on opposing sides making them rather structurally lovely.  They are definitely one of the more attractive beans.

Like a bunch of green question marks pegged to a washing line, I do love the way they gro

Typically the mother went off on holiday when her beans needed picking so old muggins here and the father were left with the task.  I sent him up the ladder, as the man, to do the picking while I stayed on terra firma in an advisory role.  He isn't terribly good at spotting what he is meant to be going for.  They were absolutely delicious, probably more so because I didn't really have to do much, and also terribly nostalgic.  A big pile of runner beans reminds me so much of being a child, really its funny how  many childhood memories seem to revolve around vegetables.

She announced this year a success, but did admit that where she planted them did not work out terribly well.  She said we needed a proper big vegetable patch next year, Im currently working on convincing her to let me dig up a huge strip of the lawn.  Im not holding my breath but we will see how it goes.