Growing your own - is it worth it?

[umslopogaas]

Seven feet!? What have you been feeding them on? I've seen peas up to about four feet, but never that tall. Do you know what the variety is? I've got Early Onward and Hurst Green Shaft, both of which reach about 30 inches. I use plastic netting strung between canes to support them, its very cheap and re-usable. Another week should see the first crop coming in. I'm afraid I dont know how to tell mange tout from ordinary peas: maybe just harvest and cook a sample of each at mange tout size and see which tastes the nicest?

[french frank]

Peas pods are filling out (plants about three and a half feet), yellow flowers on the tomatoes, scarlet on the runners. But my broad beans will be at least a month away - does everyone sow them in the autumn?

[hedgehog]

I sow my broad beans in Spring (but it was warm and early this year). The first ones are just about ready, delaying a few days to get a good feed. I do sprout them first however - 24 hours soaking in water and then I drain it off and keep in a closed container in a paper bag for darkness (of the take away meal type - no wet paper or anything), rinsing them with water each day until they are well sprouted - takes about a week.
Then I pot them up in little pots and put them outside until they are about 10cm tall and then transplant to the allotment. I guess this might be derided as being over complicated but I don't need a great many and it gives me almost a 100% germination and survival rate and fairly early cropping. My winter is too cold to be able to grow Aquadulce.

At the end of this week I shall be able to harvest my first broccoli calabrese as well. Lots of lettuce - I grow the pick and come again type. Oak leaf and, my favourite Black seeded Simpson.
Plus rocket and spring onions. (Normally I'd have peas too but this year I was behind in soil cultivation).

My garlic is sending up scapes which are delicious to eat as well as heralding the harvest in a few weeks. My potatoes have flower buds, this bringing the relief that I'll get some sort of harvest before the Phytophthora cloud appears.

[umslopogaas]

#167 ff, the RHS veg book says that autumn sowing is possible in well-drained, sheltered gardens, but there is a risk of losing the crop if winter frosts are severe. Alternatively, they can be autumn-sown under glass and transplanted outside in mid spring.

[french frank]

I guess this might be derided as being over complicated

I might well deride, but my bb pods are about an inch and a half long! I think they're later than usual, and it looks as if the runners will be quite early. It'll be a beanfeast when it arrives.

It's also the first year for a while that I've bought seeds (Aquadulce) - I usually use my last year's - and sowed in February.

#167 ff, the RHS veg book says that autumn sowing is possible in well-drained, sheltered gardens, but there is a risk of losing the crop if winter frosts are severe. Alternatively, they can be autumn-sown under glass and transplanted outside in mid spring.

My brother usually sows them in autumn, but, yes, I've heard of whole crops being wiped out. I think maybe January is ideal.

[umslopogaas]

Thanks ff, I think we are in danger of being deluded by the fact that we have had several mild winters and that's logical, because the world is warming. Well, yes, it is warming, but the weather does oscillate violently and I wouldnt deny the possibility of another very cold one. I remember the winter of 1962-63, I had to cycle to school through it and I really dont want to experience it again. Our weather does not only come from the south!

[doversoul1]

Seven feet!? What have you been feeding them on? I've seen peas up to about four feet, but never that tall. Do you know what the variety is? I've got Early Onward and Hurst Green Shaft, both of which reach about 30 inches. I use plastic netting strung between canes to support them, its very cheap and re-usable. Another week should see the first crop coming in. I'm afraid I dont know how to tell mange tout from ordinary peas: maybe just harvest and cook a sample of each at mange tout size and see which tastes the nicest?

Yes, seven feet if not taller. It is absurd but honestly, I did not do anything different from any other years (#142), and it isn’t the variety. I can’t remember offhand but it was an ordinary garden peas, probably an early variety, from Marshalls. Also, I mixed some seeds from last year’s packet when I sowed them. Besides, if it were the variety, it would be either the peas or the mange tout but there is no difference between them. I really don’t know.

I managed to pick mostly mange tout today with a few peas mixed (they were too stringy to eat).

Growing your own - is it worth it? YES!!

Sowing broad beans in autumn is a complete waste where I am. If they are not eaten, young plants are battered to the ground by the wind. I start them in December in a large seed tray and keep them in a greenhouse. The pods on the earliest crop are fattening up now.

ff, how do you get runner beans to grow so early? Mines haven’t even grown runners, let alone having flowers.

I am now wondering if I should dig up or leave a large clump of self-own Foxgloves I left in the middle of the vegetable garden. I need more space for leeks and chicory but they look very pretty at the moment… and missed potatoes from last year, too.

[hedgehog]

ff, how do you get runner beans to grow so early? Mines haven’t even grown runners, let alone having flowers.

I was wondering that too especially considering the broad beans!

[french frank]

ff, how do you get runner beans to grow so early? Mines haven’t even grown runners, let alone having flowers.

According to the internet, I sowed them in pots far too early and they were crying out to be planted into the bed I'd prepared with my own compost. The advice was that it was too early to plant out, so I might as well discard them and sow again. I ignored this, and I've been lucky - beginner's luck, as I've never grown runners before. They were Unwin's Scarlet Emperor, and if not from B&Q, then from the Coop.

I shall try it again next year, no doubt, and fail utterly

[hedgehog]

Well it was a very warm Spring this year so that would have helped. I can recommend dwarf French beans for an early crop of beans - look for an early cropping variety and you'll be picking them by the end of June. I plant them between sweet corn - on the sides of the blocks. Beans are a standard companion plant to corn and the dwarfs do well, taking little space but cropping heavily.

Soft fruit time now - last week enough to enjoy snacking on whilst at the allotment, now enough to bring home and enjoy with something creamy on the side as a proper dessert: strawberries, raspberries (early this year!), red, white and black currants. I make a compote from the currants with a little sugar and keep in the fridge for desserts. Not jam as I have a 10 metre stretch of brambles for jam.

[french frank]

I'm just a rank amateur, hedgehog, with hardly any space in my backyard. I tried French beans (including the climbing variety) for several years and they were almost total failures - in pots. Hence trying the runners for the first time - six plants and minimum ground space. Mind you, I've yet to see what kind of harvest they'll yield, but the flowers look hopeful.

[hedgehog]

Ah, sorry - I tend to get overly enthusiastic about veg. Limited space - yes runners are a good bet and the flowers are lovely too. I have mine to plant out in a day or two - 12 plants and that is aiming to be able to give many away to two other people. They will crop for a long time, need a bit of bone meal however (rose fertilizer will do). They can be blanched and frozen too (and preserved by salting but I've never eaten them that way).

[doversoul1]

La gazza ladra

This year, the badgers are less destructive (keep my fingers crosses). They are eating my early broad beans but the plants are not too badly damaged and they are leaving enough beans for us to eat. I’ll see what happens when the carrots start to grow.

The most serious problem this year so far is magpies. They are pulling up beans as I plant them. Every morning, I find a bean or two pulled up and laid on the ground. Broad beans, dwarf beans, runner beans…They could pull up an entire row but it is only one or two at the time. I’ve covered the broad and dwarf beans with a net but runner beans are problem. What do they do this for? Not for food, as the plants are not damaged.

It does make me wonder sometimes if it’s worth all this trouble. I know money can’t buy freshly picked broad beans but still….

[umslopogaas]

doversoul, perhaps the magpies are looking for the remains of the bean seed, to eat? According to my copy of 'A history of British birds' by FO Morris, "The Magpie's appetite is omnivorous ..." so I guess they are just digging to see what they can find.

Oh yes, its definitely worth the trouble. Even if the pests devour all your efforts, at least the exercise was good for you.

[Anna]

I grow my runners in giant tubs, even so the lower leaves have been nibbled. They are Enorma variety, I grew them last year as well and they were very good (I have 13 plants!) I tried dwarfs for the first time last year, cannot remember the variety, was very disappointed at how flavourless they were so didn't bother this time around. The tomatoes this year are Sun Gold, Shirley and Alicante, I meant to try something more exotic but bought the plants from the market and those were the only varieties they had (I'd left it a bit late). I have masses of wild strawberries which I'm now picking and they are delicious!