May

Grano Violetto is a unique and colourful early maturing broad bean. This very hardy variety is suitable for sowing from October. The plants grow to 90cm tall and are highly productive even at the lower parts of the plant. Harvested while still green, the purple coloration appears once the beans are dried.

French Bean 'Blauhilde' well known German heritage variety that produces attractive purple-skinned pods that have excellent flavour. The entire plant is pretty, purple flowers and purple stems, they produce myriads of flowers from which large, long 20 to 25cm (8 to 10in), fleshy and stringless pods develop.

Loved for their excellent flavour, colour and versatility, Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco, whose pink-stippled beauty makes one dream of summer days, sitting on a shaded terrace shelling them ready for a quick supper, knowing they need nothing but a quick boil and lick of olive oil; a pure fast pleasure when fresh.

Italy's noble bean grows in cream and claret flecked pods, it is a lovely tasting and strikingly beautiful bean. A dwarf variety growing to just 60cm, Borlotto Suprema is suitable where space is limited, in containers on balconies or as a border plant in small gardens.

French Bean 'Red Swan' is an heirloom stringless bean with burgundy red pods. The plants grow up to around 50cm tall and are highly productive, with good flavour the beans mature in just 50 to 60 days. For a regular and steady supply of beautiful beans, sow a few seeds every couple of weeks, from April to July.

French Bean 'Gordonia' is a beautiful extra fine, dwarf or Bush Bean that produces slender, dark green pods that have good texture and taste and are tender enough to eat raw. They mature just 8 to 10 weeks from sowing, are very easy to grow and give superb yields for a small amount of space, outlay and effort.

‘Purple Queen’ French beans are the sort of fun, sassy crop every stylish gardener wants to grow in their good-looking veg plot. They race up their supports, burst into shocking magenta flower, and then produce hundreds of gorgeous regal purple beans which are a pure pleasure to eat.

Very reliable even in variable conditions, Dwarf French Bean seeds 'Tendergreen' is a medium long pencil podded type that produces good yields of medium sized, 15cm pods that have good texture and taste. Very easy to grow, they give superb yields for a small amount of space, outlay and effort.

Blue Lake is a classic choice for early beans of highest quality eating. A wonderfully prolific French climbing bean that does well even in adverse weather, the dark green pods remain stringless and fibreless at all stages of growth. They are tender and rich, and filled with white seeds that are of incomparable flavour.

Runner Bean ‘Mergoles' produces decorative clear white blooms and white beans. This high quality variety sets well in almost all conditions and produces abundant yields of delicious, stringless, fleshy pods, which can be eaten fresh or frozen, or left on the plants to mature and harvest the mature creamy white seeds.

An improved selection of this well known and much loved variety, Runner Bean 'Painted Lady' is well know, as much for its astonishing bicolour, coral red and creamy white blooms as for the superior beans produced. The beans are deliciously thick and meaty with a sweet balanced flavour.

When I was young and idle, I’d dream of a self-refilling pint of cider. Now I’m older I dream of the slightly more realistic horticultural equivalent: beans and plenty of them. Bred for high yields and reliability, ‘Streamline’ gives heavy yields of fantastic tasty pods giving you effortless food for weeks.

Runner beans are all attractive enough for flower gardens or patios, but the 'Sunset Runner Bean' is in a class by itself. The luminous peach to shell-pink blossoms are absolutely beautiful and will look equally at home in your vegetable plot or your flower borders. The pods are fleshy, straight, smooth, and almost stringless when young.