🫘 Borlotti bean

Borlotti beans are beautiful beans with speckled crimson and cream pods and mottled seeds, grown to be eaten fresh or dried. They are rich, nutty and creamy, a staple of Italian cooking, and they are easy to grow in the same way as runner and French beans.

Climbing types need supports, while dwarf types are available for pots. They need a warm summer to ripen, but fresh shelling beans can be picked earlier if the season is cool.

Varieties to try

Lingua di Fuoco (climbing, fresh or dry)Borlotto Rampicante (climbing)Fuoco (dwarf)Eureka (dwarf)

Sow indoors from late April to May in individual pots, 5 cm deep, or outdoors from mid-May to June, once the soil is warm, at the base of canes or a wigwam, 15 cm apart. Plant out after the last frost.

Choose a sunny, sheltered site with fertile, moisture-retentive soil, and give climbing types 2.4 m canes.

Top tips

• Wait for warm soil.
• Use 2.4 m canes.
• Sow indoors for an early start.
• Plant out after frost.

Water regularly, especially in flowering and podding, and mulch to retain moisture. Pinch out the tops when plants reach the top of the support. Feed with tomato fertiliser fortnightly.

Slugs eat seedlings, and blackfly may colonise tips. In wet autumns, pods can rot; harvest early. Beans need a warm, dry end of summer to dry on the plant.

Top tips

• Water at flowering.
• Pinch out the tops.
• Protect from slugs.
• Harvest early in wet autumns.

Watch out for

SlugsBlackflyPod rot in wet autumnsBean rust

For fresh borlotti, pick pods when they turn streaked red and cream and the beans inside are plump, from August to September. Shell immediately. For dried beans, leave pods on the plant until papery, then pick, shell and dry fully.

Bring plants indoors to dry in a warm, airy spot if autumn is wet. Dry thoroughly before storing.

Beans are at their best as ‘fresh shelling’ beans when the pods have just coloured up, because they cook in half the time of dried beans and have a creamier texture. Leave a few pods to dry fully on the plant for next year’s seed, picking them once they rattle.

Top tips

• Shell fresh beans at once.
• Dry pods indoors if wet.
• Dry beans fully before storing.
• Pick regularly.

Fresh borlotti cook in 25–30 minutes, with onions, tomatoes, sage and olive oil for pasta e fagioli, in soups, stews and salads. The beans turn brown on cooking. Dried beans need soaking overnight and boiling hard for 10 minutes before simmering until tender.

Fresh beans keep for a few days in the pod in the fridge, or freeze shelled beans after blanching for 2 minutes. Dried beans keep for a year in jars.

Top tips

• Boil dried beans hard for 10 minutes first.
• Freeze shelled fresh beans.
• Cook with sage and tomato.
• Store dried beans in jars.