Scarlet runner bean is one of the older runner beans native to North America and cultivated for its edible and ornamental properties. ©2001 blossom I grow it for many reasonsÂmainly to feed hummingbirds and myself. In addition, the plant sets nitrogen in the soil. I pick a spot along the fence line to let this grow up somewhere in the garden and vary its position from year to year. Some Native American tribes regard the bean as a sacred plant. Many parts of the plant are edible, such as the pods (for green beans), dried beans, starchy roots, and edible flowers that are bean-like in taste. Use the dried beans as a substitute for garbanzo beans, limas or the Great Northern bean, and for refried beans. Since we cannot grow limas well enough in our cool Northwest climate, the scarlet runner is a good substitute. P. 'Scarlet Emperor' is a variety developed for eating them like other string beans. Harvest the pods when they are three or four inches long; after that they develop strings and parchment. Prepare and cook pods as you would other green beans. Harvest the beans when the pods have dried on the vine. Because the vine is a tender perennial, it's grown as an annual in the Pacific Northwest. Provide netting or string to train the runner beans up trellises, or arbors, at least 6 feet high. The vine is very showy and used to screen porches or twining up obelisks and other supports. Dig the roots up in fall, store them the same way as dahlias, and replant the following spring. I find this method of digging them up more trouble than itÂs worth, since the vines are easy to start from seed each year. Phaseolus coccineus is an excellent bee and hummingbird plant.

Thanks jimster. I want to try the shorter varieties under grow lights this fall. The Early Contenders bush is 22" and I need a bean that that stands around 12" tall for the grow lights.

"I am about to try this with some beans grown early in a greenhouse which have now stopped producing. I am doubtful it will work as unlike leafy plants which will respond to cutting by growing more, beans grow in order to produce seed to reproduce the plant. Having taken 6 kg of beans away (all quite young) I imagine the plants are fairly exhausted and may not have the resources to produce all the extra needed vegetative growth and then more pods (forming seed is a very energy demanding process)." Under those conditions, it might be helpful to lightly fertilize. Use a water-based fertilizer, once only. This goes against conventional wisdom, since this forum is full of "lots of leaves, but no beans" posts caused by excessive N...but this should shock the plants back to their vegetative growth cycle. The plants may not be as exhausted as you think, if you always harvested before they formed seed.

Same here, lotsa flowers, no beans last year till cooler weather came. Then they went crazy and made so many beans, I still have over a full quart jar of the dried beans! A few of the beans that fell to the ground wintered over and came up this spring. I was kinda surprised about that! But if you dry them, be sure to give them a LONG time to dry. I tried cooking some and I thought they were just OK. I mean, if I was really, really hungry I'd eat the cooked dried bean. DH is annoyingly picky about food and he ate a little bitty bowl and then didn't eat any more. So I had the rest of the pot to do something with and I didn't want to eat them every day for a week. So I poured off the liquid and saved it to add to soup, then pureed the beans in the Cuisinart, added chili seasoning, cooked ground beef, onion and green pepper and rolled them up in flour tortillas. Poured chili sauce over all and topped with sharp cheddar cheese and baked. LOL, DH had two helpings. I haven't tried 'em as green beans because I was a little put off by how hairy the pods were. I have Insuk's planted this year and they are blooming profusely. BTW, is there a difference, tastewise, between Insuks and Scarlet Runner? They look the same to me. --Ilene