Monday, July 26, 2010

Helen's beans


Helen was impressed to see that the beans she planted in the first week of May have now grown taller than she is and are starting to produce their first long pods for picking. We always get a good result from Scarlet Emperor, so I've stuck to the same variety for the last few years. Boring, I know, but it means we get results.

This year I was tempted to try something different when I came across an interesting sounding packet of courgette seeds, Tristar. I couldn't work out whether I'd get three different types of courgette on each plant or whether there'd be seeds for three different types of plant. It was the second option but I'm not sure it was terribly succesful, the little yellow ones are not very slugproof and we've hardly sampled them, the big dark green ones look like the ones we usually get and the pale green ones are very watery tasting. I think the verdict is that it's ok to stick to tried and tested varieties.

At the moment, the most pressing jobs are planting out the tiny threadlike leeks (now completed) and finding somewhere to put the purple broccoli and swedes that have been sitting in their little plug pots for far too long. Until the onions are lifted and the maincrop potatoes come out, there isn't any room.

Happy gardening (unless you're stuck in a plug pot waiting to be planted)

1 comment:

freerangegirl said...

Wow those beans look great! Good luck with your courgettes - we planted yellow ones and theyre doing okay but they dont grow as big and the leaves look quite shabby. Like you I think im sticking to trusted varieties next year!