French bean 'Scuba'
Words: Graham Rice
Dwarf French beans are one of the most valuable crops for the home-food grower. They’re not difficult to grow, and fresh picked beans from the garden are so much more tasty and nutritious than the tired beans we so often see in the supermarket.
In last year’s Wisley trial, 55 cultivars were trialled. As a result, five had their existing Awards of Garden Merit confirmed and six varieties received AGMs for the first time. Seven varieties will have their AGMs reviewed as they were thought to have been superceded.
One of the stars of the trial was the cultivar ‘Scuba’. Developed in Britain, ‘Scuba’ produces short, relatively fat, mid green pods with an average length of 12cm (5in). Its yield from the row that was weighed was 2.536kg (5.59lb) from 30 July to 11 August, sixth highest of all, and it continued to crop later in August.
Another plus point for ‘Scuba’ is that, like many modern varieties, it is disease resistant. ‘Scuba’ is resistant to three significant diseases of dwarf beans – anthracnose, pseudomonas and common bean mosaic virus.
The seeds were sown in double rows 23cm (9in) apart, directly into the ground on 2 June. Two seeds were planted at each station, the stations were 15cm (6in) apart. To discourage bean seed fly, the whole bed was covered with fleece until the seeds had germinated. After the fleece was removed, the plants were thinned to one per station. Picking began on 23 July.
The other cultivars that were give Awards of Garden Merit were: ‘Allegria’, ‘Boston’, ‘Green Arrow’, ‘Jersey’, Stanley and ‘Tasman’. Existing AGMs were confirmed for ‘Annabel’, ‘Delinel’, ‘Nomad’, ‘Golddukat’ and ‘Sonesta’.