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.

Beans 'n' Peas

Tuesday 22nd May 2012

Another dull start to the day, but eventually it warmed up and the sun shone all afternoon.

Today's task was to finish the beans 'n' peas quarter of the veg patch.











Peas
First, another sowing of peas to continue the succession. I've already got Early Onward and Kelvedon Wonder in, but I found some old collected peas from Twinkle, so I've tried these.
I'm not convinced by the virtues of growing peas. Yes, they're great fresh, but it takes so many plants to get a decent amount and the frozen ones in the supermarket aren't actually at all bad. Anyway, I'll trial these varieties and see which is best. It may be that I need them all to give a succession through the season. Again, I poked clippings of red dogwood into the ground to give the plants a framework to clamber over. But just look at the first lot of dogwood twigs - they're sprouting. By the end of the year I should have a decent crop of saplings.

Now Sugarsnap peas and Mangetout are a different story. Bountiful, delicious straight from the plant and at supermarket prices a valuable crop. I'm growing two varieties of Sugarsnap - Sugar Ann and Sugar Snap. The former I grew last year without much success, and so far this year it seems that the latter is growing with much more vigour. We'll see what the harvest is like before we make any snap decisions (see what I did there?) about next year.
As for mangetout, I grow a purple podded variety with an impossible name. It tastes as clean and fresh as the green, but adds a touch of interest and colour.

All my climbing peas are grown in with sweet peas and nasturtiums.

Beans
The runner plants are already transplanted outside and some have started to wrap themselves around their wigwam poles. Today was the turn of the more exotic beans. French beans, dwarf beans, climbing beans, Borlottis, Haricots (for baked beans), Butter Beans, Purple Teepee, Blue Lake, Canadian Wonder (for kidney beans).

The soil felt warm for the first time today. The water collected in old baths from the gutters was tepid as it trickled from the watering can over my fingers. I love it when beans push and shove their way through the soil and continue skywards at a staggering pace. If this weather continues they'll love it.

Now, if Gerry's daily catch is anything to go by, then there are certainly plenty of mice and voles around, enough to threaten young peas and beans. So I have elected this year to soak the seeds in paraffin briefly as a deterrent. But one of my bees took exception to the smell I think and buzzed me with annoying determination to the point where I had to scarper till it gave up.

Milk Carton Graveyard
If you'd looked in my veg patch mid afternoon, you'd have wondered what on earth was going on, with piles of dismembered milk cartons in piles on the grass. I've discovered that milk cartons are well designed to fit a cane tightly through the handle and to protect the young plants from the ravages of pests and the weather.

Some of my wigwams have wellies.

Bees
Since I mentioned the bees above, a quick update on the two hives. Hive A (the original, from which we removed the queen but left a few of the best queen cells) is buzzing well. In the warm weather the hive entrance and the surrounding air have been full of bees, many returning laden with pollen. Hive B (the new one into which we moved the queen along with frames of brood, honey, pollen and bees) is much slower, with just the occasional bee emerging or returning. But I still hope to find, when we can look in a couple of weeks time, that we have two colonies of bees.


Hive A - busy








Hive B - quiet

Asparagus Peas
I've grown this unusual vegetable for the last three years. Each plant forms a low growing clump and they carry the most richly coloured, delicate little flowers, much loved by bees. You eat the whole pod, plucked from the plant when it is only an inch of so long. I find the taste a little nutty, though it's supposed to taste like a cross between...you've guessed!...peas and asparagus.

Magic Beans

Friday 18th May 2012

The chickens (and guineafowl) emerge one by one from their overnight lodgings.

Growing upToday was a big day for 'the teenagers'. In their short lives they've moved from the incubator into a plastic brood box in the lounge, then into their own chicken run outside, occasionally allowed out to play, but only when the other chickens were off roaming.

But today the teenagers got to explore the big wide world. These four are very friendly chickens, not just with me but with each other. They stick close together and look out for one another.

For most of the day they disappeared, weaving their way through the overgrown grass in the chicken pen. But early afternoon I looked down the land to see them jumping around in the meadow.

By the end of the day they had become baffled by the fence which surrounds the chicken pen. Two had got themselves on one side, two on the other! They were easily caught and passed over the fence to be reunited, only to find that their old home had been taken over by two French Copper Maran chicks - the product of the next hatching after the teenagers.

On the plus side, remember that lovely new chicken house we bought about a month ago. Well, aside from laying the occasional egg in the nest boxes, the chicken flock has decided to spurn it in favour of their old quarters ( a bit like the way I prefer my ripped old jeans to a smart pair of trousers, I guess). So, from now on, the teenagers will have their own safe and secure home for the night and will henceforth be free to roam from sunrise to sunset

Wigwam City
Plants were moving into new homes today too. I have bitten the bullet and planted out all the runner bean seedlings (some growing rampantly in their tiny pots). I have two varieties, seeds saved from last year. Painted Lady is a traditional variety with wonderful flowers to add beauty to their luxuriant growth. Czar is a less vigorous white-flowered, white seeded variety whose beans can be dried to provide butter beans for the winter store cupboard.
















Of course, I may be growing Painted Czars if the varieties cross pollinated last year!I put in more purple podded mangetout seeds today too, with sweet peas and nasturtiums to climb up the trellis with them. In the rest of this bed I planted Swiss Chard Bright Lights, breadseed poppies and some Cosmos seedlings.
In the bed with the Painted Lady I am trying landcress, which should enjoy growing in the shade of the runners. And in between the Czar wigwams, Sweetcorn Minipop and a smattering of pot marigold seedlings.

I'll wait another week or so before I plant my other bean seeds. By then three of the four vegetable groups will be virtually all in the ground and I'll just need to put out the brassica seedlings to complete the fourth quarter of the wheel.

Back to the beans'n'peas. There's just one task left, which is to clear the Swiss Chard which overwintered. But just look at it! Look how well it's doing. They charge a fortune for just a few of those leaves! So I may harvest some and, if it tastes OK, leave some in for picking until this year's crop is ready.

On a more frustrating note, I think I broke my compact camera today. I don't think I did anything terrible to it, but as I went to take a photo this evening the lens refused to pop out and I received a persistent error message. So it's on to the DSLR, which will take nice pictures but is too bulky to be carting around all of the time.