Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

The mange tout has been over for about a couple of weeks now as we didn’t necessarily pick them as often as we should have and the plant stopped flowering. It was amazing however, to wander out the back door and get stuck into some freshly harvested sugarsnap peas.

I’ve left the plant in due to being very busy at work and it has become very yellow and has lots of small holes on the leaves and some of the peas. After a comment on a previous post, I decided to find out more about it. The RHS here give a really good explanation of it and a cracking picture that pretty much sums up what i found. The only discrepancy i would say is the RHS say Pea Moth doesn’t attack Mange Tout – well it has mine! This might be a lot to do with the fact that the peas have gone over and swelled inside the pods.

I know they are not meant to be eaten like this, but last night I decided to pick about 8 handfuls of pods and shell them. After pushing aside the caterpillars munching on the peas, I managed to get a decent amount of a crop. They were a bit hard, but after boiling for 10 minutes they were a lot softer, although still hardish. Nothing wrong with that though (even though the ‘eggs’ I removed while shelling the peas turned out to be caterpillar excrement!), although the Mrs. really wasn’t up for eating any of them!

My only worry is that the moths will stay in the soil until next year, so I will have to make sure I rotate the crop into the next bed, only grow Mange Tout and make sure I don’t let them go over.

Having not been able to get down the allotment as often as we want to, I was worried that the beans would shrivel in the heat we have been having lately and die. Surprisingly, a quick water once a week has been enough for them and they are starting to climb the poles erected. They are a mixture of french beans and runner beans – I have left space at each end so I can tie them up of they get too bushy!

I’ll tie them to the poles a little better on the weekend so they can climb high!

Above, the lettuce look quite nice in their little bed by the house, quite handy, although the litle gems are ‘hearting’ now so they probably need to be picked soon before they start going over. The peas behind are going very wild although they are also cropping well. I think they need to be tied up at the weekend. There really is nothing better than a fresh pea off the vine!

Also in the picture are some radishes I forgot to pick, which are bolting and the tomatoes on the left which I wil post more detail on soon.