Barcelona Beans

Barcelona have Messi, Neymar and Suarez up front. A ridiculous embarrassment of riches.

I have a similar embarrassment of riches. I have Borlotti, Rocquencourt and Cobra, plus Tendergreens, Canada Wonders, Pea Beans and Blue Lake - an embarrassment of beans.
They all grow well (as long as I am patient and leave sowing them until uncomfortably late in the spring). They all crop well. They all taste delicious.

I also grow runner beans, two types. I feel I should grow runner beans. Every veg patch has runner beans. I can't be a proper gardener if I don't grow runner beans. If you know your football, runner beans are my Fred. In the team, but nobody quite knows why.
To be honest if you put a runner bean and a French bean next to each other, I'd go for the French every time. And there's no risk of ending up with a mouthful of stringiness (even 'stringless' runners end up stringy if you neglect picking them, which I inevitably do when all those crisp, fresh French beans are growing right next door.)

I do like the flowers, though, as do the bees. So the runners survive in the plan, but just for drying and using through the winter.



The French beans
You'll have to excuse the long grass - the mower's broken... again.

The French beans fall into two categories. Borlottis, Pea Beans and Canada Wonder are all grown just for drying, for the beans inside the pods.

The rest are grown for the pods, to be eaten fresh or sliced and frozen for later.
Cobra beans are climbers, which crop early and heavily, but which are gone all too soon. Blue Lake are similar. There's nothing between them really, but I suspect that if I measured the yield carefully the Cobras would just edge it. Besides, they have wonderful black beans inside. The Blue Lake have white beans.
Then there are the Rocquencourts. Dwarf yellow beans which snap crisply and have a wonderful waxy texture. Even with a failure first time round (too cold, too dry, didn't make it past the slugs and rabbits), the second attempt which I netted has yielded several bags of beans for the freezer.
So that just leaves the Dwarf Tendergreens. These came in a mixed packet from Poundland or some such shop, so I wasn't expecting too much. In fact, I forgot about them until yesterday when I noticed bunches of beans hiding below the leaves. So I picked a few to try and they were disappointingly good, even the ones which had grown a little long and fat. I say 'disappointingly' as this leaves me with my Barcelona bean situation. A ubiquity of quality.

Then there are the broad beans and, just for the extravagance, the Yardlong beans in the polytunnel.

So, here's my team. The final eleven.

Borlotti Bean 'Lingua de Fuoco'

French Bean 'Canada Wonder' (kidney beans)

Pea Bean

Runner Bean Armstrong (red)

Runner Bean 'White Lady'

Climbing French Bean 'Cobra'

Climbing French Bean 'Blue Lake'

Dwarf French Bean 'Tendergreen'

Dwarf French Bean 'Rocquencourt'

Broad Bean 'Bunyard's Exhibition'

Yardlong Bean

 

Just don't make me choose one to leave on the bench.

Beans, beans, beans.

Against all tradition, the bank holiday weekend we've just had gave us some most glorious weather.

So it was time for a drastic haircut.



a haircut for the orchard grass



a haircut for the hay meadow
(thanks Don)

and my twice yearly haircut.

I paid for it with burnt ears, a rather raw neck and sore temples. For, as I took advantage of the sunshine and put in a very long weekend outside, areas of skin long-covered by my rather wild hair were exposed to ultraviolet rays for the first time in a long while.

In the veg patch, this weekend was all about the beans. They have been growing happily in the protective environment of the polytunnel but, now that all danger of frost has passed (I sincerely hope), they will grow into stronger plants in the soil outside.

During last week the Runner Beans went in. I have changed varieties this year. As with all my beans, I have prioritised stringlessness. Much as I like to grow heritage varieties, I find a stringy bean somewhat akin to a fish full of bones. So, for the runners, I have plumped for two varieties. Armstrong, a red flowered cultivar, and White Lady, surprisingly a white-flowered type, but more significantly white beans for drying.

I ran out of time to dig trenches for the beans, which should be
filled with compost, newspaper and all manner of rotting
material.
So instead, I transplanted each young plant onto a bed
of comfrey leaves, which should provide plenty
of goodness as they rot down.

Some French Beans have gone into the ground in the polytunnel too.

Yardlong (though the beans are best harvested before they reach this length), Cobra, Pea Beans (again for dried beans) and climbing Borlottis.

The spares have gone outside to brave the British weather. But my main French bean variety outside is Blue Lake, with its small, white haricot beans. I grew a few two years ago and the beans were beautifully crisp with not a hint of string.

We also planted some purple climbing beans, Blauhilde. These have gone in as seeds, rather than plants raised in the polytunnel.

Likewise, three types of dwarf beans: Canada Wonder, which can be stringy but should yield a good harvest of kidney beans for drying; Tendergreen; and Helda, which I snapped up ridiculously cheap at the end of last year.

All my beans will grow accompanied by climbing nasturtiums and sweet peas, to make them more attractive both to the human eye and to pollinating insects.

There's also an experiment going on with more exotic beans, nabbed from the kitchen store cupboard. More on this later.

Thinking forward to next year.

Swallows gathering ready to leave

This year has been a challenging one but still I have learned a lot and things have moved forwards here on the smallholding.
But as September is upon us, I start to cast my mind to next year. Which varieties have earned their place in next year's plan? What should I change? What has worked well?

Saturday 1st September 2012
An autumn sunrise!

Of course, next year may well be completely different. But here are my initial thoughts.

Potatoes - They liked the water this year, but the swollen lenticels made them a difficult prospect to sell. Then The Blight hit. I tried over a dozen varieties, which has given us way too many spuds given that I can't really sell many. And that's a lot of digging to plant them in ridges, earth them up and then dig them out at the end. So next year I'll be more selective. I've not even investigated how some of the types have fared or harvested, but my initial thoughts are:
Earlies and Second Earlies
Bonnies - a definite - large, smooth, abundant, good-looking. Quite large losses to blight, but next year I'll be more ready to deal with it!
Red Duke of York and Salad Blue - The Yorks are a mealy potato, great for chips and roasting. Didn't enjoy the wet soil though. Salad Blues did well, but more of a novelty crop. They give a nice, sweet mashed potato, but the purple flesh turns a little greyish.
I'll probably choose one of these varieties each year. Both hit heavily by blight.
Dunluce / Arran Pilot - Two good early potatoes. Dunluce grow big quickly but Arran Pilot didn't reach full size before the tops were bitten. Probably grow one of these in future, along with Charlotte. All affected by swollen lenticels, not great on a new potato.
Swift - I won't bother with this one again. Maybe it just didn't like conditions this year, but poor yield, never really got going.
Edgecote Purple - An attractive, purple potato (clue's in the name) which has cropped fairly well. Not too many tubers got by blight. Shame I had to take off the foliage so early. The spuds which reached full size were amazing. A definite for next year.

Maincrops
I've not harvested many of these yet. Last year the Desirees and Pink Fir Apples did brilliantly, but that was a dry year so I'm expecting the opposite this year. However, there'll always be a place for both of these in my potato patch. The Setantas cropped well. Although the tops were decimated by blight like all the others, I seem to have a good crop of healthy, red tubers under the soil. I've not tried them enough ways to comment on taste yet.
Sarpo Mira - strange to see one variety almost totally unaffected by blight. Top growth is still green, even now. This is a big advantage, though I have been told that the taste is a bit bland. I'll let you know.
I'm really hoping the Orlas do well, as they're sold as the organic gardener's spud. Top rotted away with blight, so we'll see what lies under the soil.

Peas
Well, we've all learned that peas love loads of water. What a great year for them! I used to think they weren't worth growing, and they're probably not if you're going to put them in the freezer. But as a fresh crop they take some beating, even if they don't stay on the fork, especially raw which is how I prefer them. I must say, I find it hard to tell between different varieties. They're all lovely! The traditional Kelvedon Wonder did well this year and they're going cheap in the shops at the momnent. I could save my own seed, but if it's economical I like to change it every now and again.
The Sugar Snaps were lovely too, so fresh and crunchy, but I'll make more effort to get a successional crop next year. As for the mangetouts - well, the purple-podded look nice and crop well, but for me they're a bit too cabbagey. Next year I'll be trying a more traditional green mangetout.

Beans
What a disastrous year! Virtually none made it past the slugs, which is such a shame. I grow French Bean Blue Lake for fresh pods and Canadian Wonder for kidney beans to dry. I tried the latter as fresh pods last year but couldn't bear the stringiness. The Borlottis joined both these varieties in totally failing this year.
On the plus side, the pack of "exotic beans" which I got from the 99p shop (or was it Poundland?) gave me a pretty good crop of purple pods (Purple Teepee) and the yellow pods (Monte d'Or) tasted beautiful. I'll be interested to see how the black-eyed beans do.They are healthy at the moment. I'll be buying a few of these packs next year, though it's a bit of a pain having to sort out the seeds from the mixed pack.

Runner Beans
Again, these struggled to get past the slugs. The Painted Ladies are a heritage variety which I've chosen on account of their red and white flowers. They are vigorous and crop well, but I've decided to go for a stringless variety next year. I don't like a mouth full of razorlike stringy green stuff and, even if I try to pick them young, I reckon that a customer finding themselves chewing on one of these would not come back.
The Czars, which I grow for their white flowers and white beans, are much less vigorous but, when I do eat them as pods, less prone to be stringy unless they are obviously too big. So they get another chance next year.

Three Sisters
Well, it only ended up as Two Sisters but I've been pretty impressed. The Sweetcorn (Lark) has flourished, it's wispy heads towering above the carpet of courgettes, squashes and pumpkins. Aside from the courgette mountain problem, this system may get even more space next year. I'll add more different winter squashes, as they look great and store well.

The cucurbits which I grew in tyres have done very well too, so I'll continue with this next year.

Leeks and Celery
The leeks and celery seem to be growing very well indeed in each other's company. We've started taking some of the young celery already and I look forward to the leeks later in the year.

Root crops
The Parsnips (Tender & True) have, I think, done brilliantly. Another crop which likes plenty of water early on I guess. I'm confidently expecting to have to bring in a digger to get the whole roots out. I don't know whether interplanting with garlic has helped, but since they've done so well I'll repeat this next year. In stark contrast, none of my Hamburg Parsley came up from two sowings. Such a shame as I really like it. I'll try again next year, but if it fails again...
Carrots of all varieties have had a catastrophic year. I've always been able to rely on these doing well before. I'm sure they'll do well again next year and I'll still grow lots of different colours and shapes.
The Scorzonera, which did so well last year, also failed to materialise. We really like the taste but the long, black roots are extremely fiddly to peel. In contrast, its sister crop, the Salsify, has done brilliantly, as has the Celeriac next to it. Both crops need longer to harvest, but I'm full of expectation. I'll leave some Salsify to flower, since it's a lovely plant all round.
Beetroots have done OK this year, though germination was poor and the slugs got all of those which were planted later. But I do love the taste. I think three types is enough, a red one (may try one of the longer tubers next year), stripy Chioggia and a golden one for sure.

Brassicas
As usual, everything else has got on top of me and the poor brassicas have dropped off the bottom of the list. Next year! The turnips did well early on!



So, that's the beginnings of my plans for next year. No doubt over the winter months I'll be absorbed in planning everything in much more detail. There's the flowers and herbs too, and of course I have a polytunnel for next year which will give a whole new range of opportunites and challenges.

Roll on 2013!

Just when you thought it was safe to venture into the courgette patch!

Thursday 30th August 2012
The wind went northerly and the showers blasted through.

 

A week ago the march of the courgettes seemed to be slowing. I should have realised this was just down to a spell of dry weather. As soon as the soil was dampened again, off they went again! And, with the help of those wonderful plants, I may soon actually be turning water into wine, as I have found a recipe for courgette wine!

 

It's available here...http://www.courgetterecipes.co.uk/ along with a pretty good selection of other courgette ideas. Though I'm reckoning there will still be enough to keep the chickens happy and maybe even some left over for the pigs.

 

We took another harvest from the bean plants today too.  The purple teepee do, of course, quickly turn green on cooking. The yellow varieties, I find, are hard to beat for their sweetness and crisp texture.

And I've left the haricots and black-eyes to plump up for their beans. If the tomatoes ever get going I may prepare a few batches of alternative baked beans.
All these beans from a £1 seed packet from the cheap shops! They've earned their place in next year's plan.

Raising the pulses

Monday 2nd July
A glorious morning sky.

Exotic beans
I bought a cheap packet of beans from a pound shop which contained black-eyed (one of my favourites), haricot (baked beans), purple teepee and butter bean. I must say, I hadn't realised I'd be able to grow this range of pulses but, aside from slug browsing, they seem to be doing quite nicely.

Rows of exotic beans. A few gaps, but otherwise doing OK.

The thought struck me that I already had half a jar of black-eyed beans in the pantry. Could these be any different to what I'd just planted? So, as an experiment, I've sprouted the beans and literally thrown them into the ground.

Now to wait and see what happens. Could be a very cheap way of buying lots of seeds (though hopefully I'll be able to save my own of this particular variety anyway).

I'm also growing loads of kidney beans with seed saved from last year. These are edible as dwarf beans but, being a heritage variety (Canadian Wonder), I found the stringiness not to my taste. However, the prospect of jars full of dried beans for winter protein is a very appealing one.




Meanwhile, the Borlotti beans I sowed in the greenhouse are reaching for the skies and ready to be planted out.

Borlottis protected in the greenhouse.

Likewise, all the other beans I belatedly sowed to fill the slug gaps are bursting into the fresh air. I love growing beans - they come up so strong and before you know it you've got strong, thriving plants.








Outside, most of the early sown beans have just about made it past the slugs. There's an equation here - growth rate of the plant against rate of eating by the slugs. This is where my wet weather slug culls redress the balance in favour of the plants. A modicum of sunshine in the last few days has helped too.

However, the seeds I planted direct in mid May are nowhere to be seen. This is when the slug explosion really went berserk. My French beans Blue Lake (a tender, stringless variety) have completely vanished in the soil.
Let's hope that giving them a start in paper pots and culling the slugs will give the new plants a fighting chance.