Showing posts with label runner beans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label runner beans. Show all posts

Monday, June 17, 2013

17th June!

Yesterday I finally had time spare for the garden so even though there was a light drizzle I did a bit of work.
I planted-up the patio planters - with an odd mixture of flowers and salad leaves. Sweet peas at the back so they can go up the trellis, busy lizzies in front in one planter, and the other one got a few clumps of mixed Italian salad leaves which I had started indoors, and a couple of geranium.
I pulled some more rhubarb, almost a kilo this time. Still problem with slugs eating the talks.
The potatoes are doing well now. For some reason the carrots are barely germinated in the right hand box, not sure if I should cut my losses and sow some more or what.
I transplanted one of the aqualegia plants and put it in a flower bed. If it survives I might move one of the others too because they are too big for the box now. They are flowering and should not be in there.
The broad beans are rather sad looking and the french beans look half dead! One or two have flowers but must of them are dead back to the first pair of leaves. It looks as though they might be regrowing from that point though so I trimmed the stems and I will see how they do this week.
Looks like I may have plenty of empty squares soon :-(
The one nice surprise is the parsnips. The ones which I started indoors are flourishing. I pulled up two plants since they need thinning anyway, and they have lovely little roots! Perhaps I should try doing carrots this way too next year? The "carrot week" ones have germinated quite well this time but starting them off indoors would mean that they would be well away by now.
Bought some timber yesterday so that I can edge round the veg boxes and put down woodchips to make it look neater. Once that is done I will post an update picture to show how things are growing. We really need some sunshine.
Oh, forgot to say that I planted out the runner beans too. They have been outside in a tray for over a week so the garden should not come as a shock but they were started too early indoors, as were all the beans.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Beans, beans, beans!

The weather is still not very spring-like. Finally got around to sowing beans indoors today. I have always had 4 broad beans per square and that seems about right to me. In Mel's book it says 9 per square for bush beans, and 8 per square for pole beans. So with this in mind I sowed enough for 9 per square - except the Masterpiece broad bean which will be 5 per square (mostly because I had run out of tray space!). That is the plan at least, assuming they all come up.
The Masterpiece and Moonlight beans are old ones from last year or the year before. Moonlight did not do well last year but I am giving it a second shot.
The Borlotti beans and some broad beans called Aguadulce Supersimonia are ones which I bought from a farm shop near Derby. They are Italian so may not be suited to this climate.
The French beans are from a Nordic company It will be interesting to see how they perform.
Below is the plan as I see it. The empty spaces will be for carrots.


Jerusalem artichokes
Moonlight runner beans x9
Broad bean Masterpiece x5
Broad bean Masterpiece x5
French bean Lord Nelson x9
Borlotti bean x9
Broad bean Italian x9
Broad bean Italian x9
French bean Lord Nelson x9



Rainbow carrot  x16
Rainbow carrot  x16