Moonlight

Why it suits Ireland

The single most frustrating thing about runner beans here is a plant covered in flowers that produces nothing. It happens most years to somebody, and it happens because bumblebees will not fly in cold wet windy weather and a traditional runner bean needs them to trip the flower.

Moonlight was bred specifically against that failure. In a poor July it will keep setting pods while a scarlet variety on the next wigwam drops flower after flower, and in a good summer it crops much like anything else. That is a useful insurance policy in a climate where you cannot predict the fortnight the beans will flower in.

The pods are smooth and stringless with a good flavour, which is the other reason it has largely replaced older white varieties in Irish and British catalogues.

None of this makes it drought proof. Keeping the soil at the base of the row genuinely wet through flowering matters just as much for Moonlight as for anything else.

Growing notes

Sow indoors in pots from late April to mid May, 5cm deep, and plant out at the end of May or early June once frost risk has passed. Direct sowing works from June.

It climbs to around 2.5m, so use 2.4m canes driven well in and tied at every crossing. Wind is the risk, not vigour, so put the row against a hedge or fence if you can and point its narrow end into the prevailing south westerly.

Mulch the base and water heavily once a week from the first flower. Pinch out the tips at the top of the canes.

Pick every second or third day from late July while the pods are still flat and 15 to 20cm long. Being stringless, they stay usable slightly longer than an old variety, but the plant still shuts down if you let seed ripen in the pods.

A good insurance strategy in a bad-weather garden is to grow Moonlight and a scarlet variety side by side. One or the other will do well in any given summer.