Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

I find runner beans good value. Once they are in the soil and are growing, they pretty much do their own thing aside from a quirt of something organic to kill the blackfly once a week.

I have absolutely no idea what varieties of beans are growing…one has red and white flowers, the other nice deep red ones, and they are intertwined. The reason for this is i planted about 4 different varieties in plugs, and put out the strongest plants from the cells. A friend of mine who has just taken on an allotment had the rest, so it will be interesting to compare our differing results.

There are some mini beans growing, so we should have something edible within 2 weeks (when they are about 5 - 7 inches long is ideal for us) …then it’ll go nuts! Last year we planted way, way too many beans…almost to the degree that the weight of the plants and size, meant i couldn’t actually get in to harvest the beans! This year i have put eight plants in, around six canes, which will be plenty for us for the rest of the summer, and into the winter when frozen. Freezing beans is a useful way of keeping them, after blanching, but they don’t taste half as good.

Now to go and trim the ivy, that is slowly trying to strangle the beans from above, and giving the slugs a nice bridge onto the crop!