The very best baked beans

Saturday 21st October 2017
Finally. The Borlottis are harvested.
With the holiday upon us and the weather pretty foul, I spent most of the day shelling beans.

I grow several types of beans. Apart from last year, when they all really struggled, they've always been an easy crop which produces well.
I prefer to grow climbers as they make better use of space. They tend to crop over a longer period too, though this isn't too important for drying beans.

For my fresh green beans I grow French bean Cobra. It is very prolific, stringless and very tasty.
I grow runner beans too, but I let them mature and harvest the beans inside. If harvested when the pods are swelled and beginning to yellow, the beans can be cooked from fresh. But left on the plant the pods dry and are easily cracked open to reveal the dried beans inside. These are excellent in winter casseroles. In fact on the continent this is the sole purpose for which runner beans are grown.

Some years are better for drying the beans than others. This year has been excellent. In a warm damp year they are best harvested earlier and dried artificially as the pods and beans can start to go mouldy on the plant.

I save the best pods for next year's beans.

As well as runner beans, I grow another called Gigantes. This gives a large butter bean. I used to grow runner bean Czar for this purpose, but Gigantes gives a much bigger bean. Besides, white runner beans are significantly less prolific than their cousins.

I grow Pea Beans too. They are hard to get hold of and I lost my stock last year when they failed to germinate. They produce a small bean with a beautiful ying-yang type pattern. Fortunately I managed to source some more.

The shelling out takes ages - a job for a wet day or to be done in front of the TV. They then go into the dehydrator for a while, just to make sure there is no residual moistness.

Left to right: Borlottis x2, Runner beans, Gigantes butter beans x2, Pea beans x2

The final harvest this year was a good one. It doesn't look like much but the beans go a long way and are full of protein. There was a period in my life when I was vegan (before it was the trendy thing to do) and dried beans were an important part of my diet. I love their taste and texture and all the better if I can now grow them myself.

On Sunday Sue cooked up a bean mix in the slow cooker. She followed a recipe for Boston beans and they were delicious, a great improvement on tinned baked beans, which is saying something.

We intend this winter to explore more versions of baked beans, drawing on our plentiful supply of frozen home grown tomatoes and dried herbs.

Possibly the greatest meal - we've managed to improve bangers, beans and chips.

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.

It's harvest time already

Strange lights shine across the fields during the night and the distant rumble of engines and blades hums away into the early hours. Fields which the previous day swayed in the breeze suddenly have neat crew cuts with perfectly straight rows of straw creating giant geometric patterns.

Here on the veg patch harvest is well under way too. We've already had a bumper crop of tomatoes, a basket full every day for the last few weeks, as well as cucumbers dripping from the three plants in the polytunnel.

But now the outside crops are coming good too. I've picked my first runner beans and French beans. The first and second sowings of broad beans need picking as the beans inside those fleshy pods have now swelled enough to cause the pods to hang downwards.


Runner Bean Scarlet Emperor

French bean Cobra

Then, of course, there are the courgettes.
Yes, they're coming again in an inexorable march. The more you pick the more they come. I've even discovered my first accidental marrow already.

And finally the potatoes have done well this year, growing and swelling quickly. This is fortunate, for I've had to take the tops off all of them as blight has been both early and widespread this year. Sunshine and rain both in abundance does have its downside. I'm just hoping that most of the varieties have had enough time to swell and that the blight hasn't got down into too many of the tubers.





So in the middle of last week I roamed the veg patch gathering in some of the harvest. Here's a pictorial sequence, a bit like a children's book. In go the beans...in go the courgettes...in go the potatoes...until the basket was full.

Bean Trials - Findings start Coming In

Borlottis

Two years ago I grew as many different potato varieties as I could with the aim of settling on a few varieties which would serve me well.

This year it was the turn of the beans, runners, dwarfs, dried, French, inside, outside...

The beans broadly fall into two categories, those where the whole pod is eaten and those grown purely for the actual beans inside.

First, let's get the dwarf beans out of the way. They were a complete failure this year, with virtually no germination. I guess the late winter meant the soil was not warm enough. Everybody round here had the same problem. The climbing beans on the other hand did well. Don't ask me to explain that one!

Runners
I have abandoned heritage varieties this year and have prioritised stringlessness. This is because I detest finding a mouthful of stringy bean pod in my mouth. It's like eating bony fish.
I have grown a red variety, Armstrong, and it has done well. Even when I forget to harvest it for a while, the ones which have grown a bit too big still snap cleanly. Then there's a variety with white flowers and white beans - the name totally escapes me right now. This I am growing for the beans inside, which I hope to be able to use as dried butter beans. It's pretty much stringless as well, so would have been a good back up variety if needed. For some reason, white varieties always seem less vigorous than red ones and take longer to get going.

French (Green) Beans
I've grown a past favourite, Blue Lake, outside and it has again performed very well. It is a crisp, clean flavoured bean which is responsible for me discovering that there are some green foods I actually like! I've also grown Cobra this year, some in the polytunnel and some outside.Both have done well. Given how precious space is in the polytunnel, I may just grow enough in there next year to last until the outdoor crop comes good.

Yard Long beans

A bit of a novelty one this. It failed outside, even when started off in modules in the polytunnel, but the tropical conditions under cover have suited it much better. You don't need many beans to make a meal and it's cropped very well over quite a long period. Not quite as delicate a taste as the French Beans, but it has earned a place in next year's plan. I have lots of very long pods full of next year's seed just hanging until they fully dry.

So we're pretty much sorted for next year on the green bean front.

But I've also been trying a few varieties for drying, a great source of protein for winter stews. The plants in the polytunnel have gone over now and many of the pods are dry enough to pod out.
It's not that long ago that the luxurious profusion on the bean plants was threatening to overwhelm the whole polytunnel. However, I've a feeling that this may have been somewhat at the expense of the bean harvest. I've also got a feeling that the earlier beans to set weren't pollinated very well. The insects took a while to discover the tropical environment of the polytunnel earlier in the year and the older pods seem to have very few properly developed beans inside.

Today's exploratory harvest was, I have to admit, slightly disappointing, but on the whole I have a lot more beans than I started with and I have a much better idea of what I want to grow for next year, and more importantly where I want to grow it.

Pea Beans
An old favourite this one. It performs pretty well outside and I actually planted some late to replace a couple of failed crops. Inside the polytunnel it romped away, winning the race to the top and thriving under the warm conditions. It wasn't long before I was regularly having to pull leaves from the plants to allow some air ventilation.






But, now that most of the leaves have fallen, the final yield is sparse. I reckon I'll struggle to fill a jar. So although it'll be on next year's list of plants to definitely grow, it probably won't be getting a place in the polytunnel again. There is plenty of space outside to grow as much as I want, so half of this year's harvest may be saved for next year's seed.

Black-eye Beans

I absolutely love eating these beans, so when a few were included in a cheap pack of 'exotic' bean seeds, it gave me the idea to try growing the beans I had in store in the kitchen. Last year I just sowed them straight into the cold, wet ground and they happily rotted away!

Not one to give up, this year I took more care of them and raised them alongside other beans in modules under cover. Germination and initial growth was strong. I wasn't sure whether they would be dwarves or climbers, and they ended up somewhere in between, starting off slowly but then climbing up the sunflower stems in the polytunnel.

Again, though, the total yield looks like it will be fairly low. Each pod has done well, with up to 13 beans in each pod, but the number of pods is fairly low. However, I intend to try some black-eye beans fresh in tomorrow's dinner and if I like them they may just earn a little place under cover next year. I'm hoping, though, that they will thrive outside. As with the pea beans, it may be that less leaves equals more beans. Or are they too exotic?

Black-eye Beans growing next to Pea Beans

A pod full of black-eye beans

Fresh black-eye beans

Over in the corner of the polytunnel, the climbing Borlotti pods provided a vivid splash of colour through the summer. But now the pods are fading. These beans appear to have been the most prolific of the beans I have grown for drying, as well as looking very dapper.
I podded a few of them today to discover the most subtly beautiful beans inside.






Borlottis



So Borlottis haved earned themselves an increase in space next year, as long as they taste nice. There are some growing outside too, a less tall variety, so it will be interesting to assess how they do.















I've saved the very worst till last. Not beans, but peas, I decided to plant a batch of chick peas from the store cupboard to keep the black-eye beans company. They germinated very well and I was pleased with their initial growth. But after a while it became apparent that each plant seemed to have, on average, about one pod on it! Not only that, but each pod seemed to have one chickpea inside! This seems to be a crop which, at least in a British polytunnel, would require quite some acreage to fill a tin.
But it gets worse. For today I realised that most of those precious pods had either dried up and withered to nothing or else just totally disappeared.

 A rare chickpea pod 

I guess then that if we want to continue to enjoy eating chickpeas, hummus and tahini, then we'll just have to buy them from the supermarket. Some crops just weren't designed to grow in this country, which probably explains why you don't see fields full of chickpeas.

My total chickpea harvest!!!!
Sue and I will have half each.

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!

Lugubrious Legumes

Some of the Painted Lady runners
are just starting to produce beans.

Friday 3rd August 2012
These clouds eventually brought some torrential afternoon showers

I'm just glad I'm not a bean.
Even the runners have struggled this year. The Painted Ladies, normally so vigorous, have struggled to get going, but finally some have got past the slugs and managed to gather enough light and heat to reach the top of their wigwam. I've clipped off the tops to encourage them to bush up and I've even harvested five runner beans.
I selected Painted Lady for its dual coloured flowers and its vigorous growth, but I have to say it seems to go stringy very quickly. There's nothing worse than a mouthful of stringiness - the bean equivalent of fish bones! From now on there'll be daily checks to make sure I catch the beans at optimal size.

I also grow Czar, a runner with white flowers and white 'butter' beans, which I plan to harvest and dry for the winter. It's not so vigorous though, and has struggled to get going this year.

Which varieties I grow is always open to review. In fact, this year's crop has been grown from beans collected last year and I'm not sure they haven't crossed. It'll be a lot clearer when I can harvest some Czars. I have noticed that one of the Painted Ladies has all red flowers.



If the runners are looking a bit sad, my other climbing beans are looking woeful. My third attempt at Borlottis will be lucky to yield one or two plants - all the others have been systematically nibbled into oblivion. I'm just hoping for enough to get some seed for next year. The same with French Bean 'Blue Lake'. This is a real shame, since in a good year it yields wonderfully tender and stringless beans.

Purple Teepees, I presume.

The packet of 'exotic beans' which I purchased are beginning to fare a little better. I'm not entirely sure which are which, as the five types came mixed in one packet. I separated them out based on colour, but the Purple Teepees have not come from the beans I thought they would!


Anyway, they are beginning to bush up and flower. The first tiny pods are appearing.
You may remember that I experimented with sprouting a few shop bought black-eyed beans and throwing them in the ground. Well, it didn't work. Probably not a good year to try, and a rather haphazard way of doing it. I will give it another go next year, but with a little more care and attention. They may even get a place in the polytunnel.

Much better this year to be a pea.

They have loved the wet conditions and seem unaffected by the slugs. The standard peas have done well, although the pea moths have found some of them. I've grown four different types and it will be a learning experience to compare them for yield and taste.



Purple-podded peas still cropping well.

The purple-podded mangetout is cropping well now. I agree with others' comments that these have a less delicate taste than standard green mangetout. We still eat some either raw or lightly steamed, but have found that we need to pick them very early before they begin to swell at all. No worry if we miss them though, since the peas they produce rival any others we've grown for taste. They are a very attractive additon to the veg patch, especially now that the sweet pea I sowed in with them has come into flower and the Cosmos Sensation are flowering at their base.
But I do think that for next year I'll look into a more tender green variety too.

Contending with the purple-podded peas for prettiness is the asparagus pea bed, which I have bordered with alyssum, along with the odd marigold. Not to everyone's taste, if anyone tells you this tastes like asparagus or peas, or a cross, they have probably not actually tasted it. In oriental cookery it's known as the winged pea/bean, named after the square, winged pods. These need to be picked very young and lightly cooked. If you don't get it right, they taste woody. A quick surf of the internet reveals plenty of people bemoaning the cardboard razorblades they have grown! I don't eat many of mine, but I do find the taste quite good - I would say a little nutty. In oriental cookery it is used more as a green ingredient in other dishes rather than on its own. I could see this working.


Asparagus Pea flowers

Asparagus pea has not really been selectively bred so does not come up to the yield and tenderness of other legumes, but if you have space it is certainly worth a try. I find it easy to grow, and this year's crop came from last year's collected seeds. Germination was excellent. It is an attractive, low-growing plant and the bees love it.




Finally, can you guess what this is?       ...
Last year's celery!
I had the bright idea of leaving it to collect the seed, but now find that celery seed has very few culinary uses. Anyway, I'll give it a go. I do like the proliferation of delicate flowers too.