[Fleecewife]

I use an attachment on my Kenwood to slice runner beans - doesn't make them long and stringy as most slicers do and is wonderfully quick.  However, they have to have been destrung/destringed? beforehand, which is not quick in spite of the fact I've had well over half a century of practice  .   The only gadgets I can find that will remove the strings, also slice in 'one easy action'.   I just want something to string my beans other than a knife or potato peeler, but leave the beans unsliced.
Does anyone know of such a thing?

[cloddopper]

Your fingers ? 

[Fleecewife]

Thanks clodhopper - so helpful     And there was me thinking I'd be bound to get an answer on TAS.

I'll try Lakeland and see what they can come up with for next year.

[pgkevet]

I solved the problem by growing climbing beans instead of runners! (plus they're nice pickled to save freezer space)

I did look at those stringer/slicers but also wanted them cut on the bias rather then longways. I did wonder (but was too mean to buy and try) if one of those tools could be modified by removing the centre cutters so it just strings??

[Fleecewife]

That's exactly what I was wondering.  I have a very simple one so I'll remove the middle cutters and see if it works.  The one I have seen in the past was somehow spring loaded so the stringers always pressed on the strings, no matter if it was a wide bean or a skinny one.


I do grow climbing French beans too, but I really love runners and they come out after freezing better than the French beans.

The crop is winding down now, so not such a problem until next year.

[pgkevet]

Let me know if that works

Bean Thing:

About the simplest runner recipe you can have... Steam a massive pile of runners. Meanwhile slice up a serious pile of onion rings,, fry until carmelising and almost burned and chuck in/stir a  handful of breadcrumbs while the pan is really hot which will soak up the oil and crumb itself over the rings. Thats your crunchy topping.

I'm a  carnivore but this does me happily for a quick lunch. For dinner you add diced bacon to the onion mix.

[cloddopper]

FW ,
Seriously ..... There are now varieties of stringless runner and climbing French beans that could solve your dilemma.

 Some of the heirloom  runner beans I have are starting to show very little stringiness so long as they are picked at the right time having been well watered and fed through out their growing season . 
This year I have only put a half a dozen seeds aside for my own purposes . Would you like three seeds for spring .?

 They are quite prolific  and even though wrinkly and bent can reach 32 inches or more in length if left on the vine to grow & can often still be free of strings and scales .
 I selected my seed bean early on in the year , tied a marker to the stalk and took it off when it started to turn to seed brown

[Fleecewife]

Cloddopper - how extremely generous of you to offer me some of your beans     I really appreciate that, but I wouldn't dream of taking them, when you will need them for yourself.   Here, it's usually very difficult to get a good crop of runners, and in fact this must be the best year since we moved here 19 years ago.  Before that we lived at only about 300' above sea level, so our beans were prolific.
This year I've grown Moonlight, which is an excellent bean, and if picked young is stringless.  because my beans are inside a polytunnel, setting can be a bit of a problem, with high temps and fewer insects than outside.  We spray the flowers with water, feed, etc, but white flowered varieties work best for us.   Last year I lost many whole crops, including my runners, to spider mite - everything wrapped in masses of webs, no crops.  We gutted the place last winter, and had the soap spray at the ready this year - that did the trick when the little bu66£rs appeared, and they didn't last long.
So this year I too am saving some of my seed so over the next few years I will develop my own Moonlight version which will suit our particular local conditions.
So although my beans are in theory stringless, I haven't always been able to pick them absolutely on time, when they are small.  I don't eat the big fibrous ones, but sometimes beans have got big enough to need stringing.  Add to that that my family don't like the least bit of fibre in their beans, and that means I tend to string them all. I probably don't need to, but it's a lifetime's habit I haven't been able to break.

[cloddopper]

If I were you I'd look into growing some bumble bees & move the nest at night into a poly tunnel filled with several different flowering plants when  you need pollinations
 

Bumble bees work longer hours than a honey bee and also work in much colder conditions whereas the honey bee only works after sunrise to just before sunset and only when the temps air 50 oF or above .

[Fleecewife]

I'm definitely a cheer leader for bumble bees    This year is the first we've even seen a honey bee up here, and even so there are only ever a handful.   We provide all sorts of support and encouragement for our bumbles, including just about every type of flower on our smallholding being liked by bees, and we have loads of bumbles, mostly carders and bufftails, this year.  What I have noticed though is that although they are attracted into the tunnel by all the comfrey flowers which grow themselves in there, when the comfrey is out, that's all they visit (others have noticed this with poached egg plant too).  They did manage to pollinate the early strawbs this year, so weren't totally one track minded.   They also did pollinate the runners, but in other more difficult years there simply don't seem to be enough bumbles around.  They had had three very hard years before this year, and their numbers overall had plummeted.  I don't want to keep honey bees - I don't like being stung, and I don't want them taking nectar and pollen meant for the bumbles.  I'm not sure if we have any solitary bees - I don't know anything about them.
But I do agree - encourage the pollinators.   I keep meaning to finish the article I'm doing for Rosemary on bumble bees, but I seem to have been up to my ears in stuff to do this summer.  I will put it all together soon though.
Really I think all I can do is carry on as now, encourage bumble bees and hover flies, stop the bean flowers from drying out and getting too hot, keep the roots well watered and well fed, pick them early and develop a variety which is adapted for our particular growing conditions.
But I know I'll go on checking them for strings 

[cloddopper]

Ha Ha   ...... Yes the bees would home in on the plant with the most nectar or pollen available .
 I hadn't thought about a nectar flow in the poly tunnel , just a small cardboard box of pollinator bumble bees that you can move around at the deep dark of night .

Solution?   Cut the comfrey and use it for liquid manure or in the compost heap or as a liner for a potato trench

[Fleecewife]

I dropped in at Lakeland yesterday to see what they could suggest for my bean stringer.  Like everyone else, they have a gadget which strings and slices into rats tails in one movement.  They are happy to take suggestions for things they don't currently sell, so I described what I would like - a stringer with spring loaded blades but no slicing bit. 

Apparently, if someone else, or maybe several other folk, suggest the same thing, then they will look into making what I want.

So, is anyone else up for putting in a similar request for a bean stringer which leaves the beans themselves whole to be sliced as we want, either in an electric machine or by hand?

[cloddopper]

Have you tried using one of the potato peelers with a metal tipping  moving blade to de string the beans ... the carrier body looks like a small metal catapult .

 Similar to eBay  331190334775

 I put swivel potato peeler in to ebay  The put in " Bean string remover "

 This one eBay 171455007499 , is supposed to shave each side edge of the bean ensuring the string is removed leaving you with the edible part .