Growing Runner Beans

Spain

At Colegio Añoreta we grew runner beans in our school garden. In about four months they grew from seeds into tall plants that climbed upwards, gave pretty red flowers and produced some nice beans. Here are some pictures of how we did it.

First our friends from Wales sent us a package of runner beans. We love getting mail from our Comenius partners!

Our package came with 24 runner bean seeds to plant. They were dark red with black spots on them. We know that all nine schools in the project had the same kind of seeds and were doing the same as us.

We studied how seeds germinate and did an experiment to see what type of soil works best. Then we got to work in the school garden, where we planted our seeds, watered them and watched them grow.

We organized our garden plot and put down yellow cards where we planned to plant our seeds. Could anything really grow in this dry patch of land?
 

Andalusia is a fertile land where with a lot of sun and warm temperatures that let you grow outdoors all year round. The only problem is that it doesn't rain very much, so we will have to water our garden regularly. We love taking turns to use the hose and water the garden!

After we planted the beans in our garden, they popped up out of the soil and started growing. They started out with just a stem and two leaves. But soon they started to get bigger...

And bigger!
They grew so quickly that we had to set up some bamboo poles support them. The beans twisted around the poles in circles to climb upwards towards the sky.

Soon our runner beans were not only tall – they also gave little red flowers that added colour to our garden.

Finally the flowers disappeared and runner beans started to grow in their place. Can you find three beans hanging from the plant in this picture?

In the end we were able to reap the fruits of our labour. Here are some students showing off some of the things we grew in our garden: strawberries, peppers, onions, and of course, runner beans!

We finished the project by making a display in our school office with some of the products from our school garen and pictures of our students. Here you can see our runner beans on the table with some peppers, onions, potatoes and lettuce.