My Garden: 11th June 2016

June is a wonderful time in the garden. By this time we've gotten ample sunshine and rainfall to really get things started. Some long awaited crops, like broad beans, are ready for eating, everything else is making good progress and there is still time to sow seeds.

My over-riding plan for this year was to promote polyculture in the garden by growing vegetables, flowers and herbs alongside each other. I found it surprisingly difficult to get it started, trying to think outside the box when I was planting, but as the beds have filled up, I am getting more adventurous and creative with plant placement. And I have noticed the results massively. My broad bean crop is healthy and bountiful, and I like to think that the bright colourful pansies surrounding them have helped attract pollinating insects to the beans. I've been growing broad beans for a few years and this is my best year yet.

In my main veg bed (first photo) I have garlic, beetroot, parsnips, lupines, thyme, broad and borlotti beans, pansies, coriander, dill, radish, nasturtiums, Gypsophilia elegans (Baby's Breath) and spinach. I've noticed a massive lack of pest activity (namely slugs) and I believe this is because of the mix of plants camouflaging each other. Certainly my lupines in other areas of the garden are being well damaged by slugs, whereas the flower stalks in the vegetable bed are pristine.


The variegated leaves of the nasturtium reveal the first flower of the season. I've been nibbling on the leaves and they have a massive peppery kick. They are nestled among garlic and spinach which has gone to seed in the heat. The low lying, creeping leaves of the nasturtium is a nice balance to the tall spikes of the garlic:

Radishes grow in a line and you can see thyme to the left:

Peas are just starting the flower. You can really see the importance of a trellis - the bottom of the plants are quite chewed by slugs but the tops are out of their reach:

On the patio at the back of the house (south facing) I have my courgettes and tomatoes in pots. The biggest courgette in the foreground is in a 20 litre pot and the effect is incredible. I am planning to move some tomatoes into similar sized pots and the others into a bed. I've never grown tomatoes in a bed before and I'm looking forward to seeing what difference it will make:

That's all the highlights at the moment. I could show you photos of my giant comfrey plant covered in bees or the potatoes beginning to flower but I think I've taken enough photographs for one post. Till next time...

My Garden: 28th June 2015

Another glorious day. From reading this blog you would think that the sun always shines in Ireland but I must only be inspired to post on the good days. We were out in the garden before 8 this morning; I in my pjs and wellies and toddler in his wet gear as it had rained quite heavily last night. Torrential rainfall followed by warm sunshine is a combination in which the garden really blooms. My courgette plant opens a new flower almost every day but none as fantastic as this morning: 

Where another flower has dropped off, a courgette stands waiting to be picked. I had heard that courgettes were prolific fruiters and I've found that to definitely be the case so I am glad that I only have the one plant.

My little helper illuminated. He had great fun poking his finger in the centre of the flower. Helping along pollination I'm sure:

Basking in the sunshine:

I am growing four varieties of tomato this year - Moneymaker, Sungold Select, Black Cherry and Indigo Rose (pictured):

I bought the Indigo Roses as plants in a local GIY plant sale, the rest I grew from seed. The purchased plants were much more established that my own and they have been the first to start fruiting. I am really excited to see the purple black tomatoes emerging. Most of my plants have started to flower at this stage so it shouldn't be long before I have a range of colours.

See you in July!

Learning About Broad Beans

Like most gardeners, I have more seeds than sense and more varieties than vigour. I have unopened packets borne of impulse, the likes of fennel and gherkin cucumbers. I do not aspire to be a whimsical gardener; I want to learn valuable skills and soak up empirical wisdom through experimenting with methods and figuring out what works for me rather than relying on generic tips. The only way to do this is to specialise in certain plants, growing them year after year learning new tricks with each success and failure.

This is my second year growing broad beans and I've already witnessed different behaviours from crop to crop. Last year I planted in the autumn, over wintered the plants in the greenhouse and planted out in the spring. Most of my pods were harvested before the black bean aphid attack in June. We are at the end of June now and have escaped any aphid attack so far. I followed age old advice of picking out the growing tips once the first pods had developed. This has the double advantage of diverting the plant's strength towards swelling the bean pods, as well as making the plant less susceptible to the aphid.

A piece of advice I failed to follow was to not plant your beans in the same bed as alliums. Below you can see broad beans and mange tout alongside my garlic. So far I cannot see any ill effects. Both varieties and showing a marvelous yield. I have been eating the peas for a week and some of the bean pods are just about large enough to warrant harvesting some for the beans inside. You can eat the young broad bean pods whole but I prefer to wait until the beans have swelled to adult size.

A sight less desirable are my two other broad bean plants, whose yellow mottled leaves you can see below. These plants were started at the same time as the others, planted out at the same time but into a large contained with some spinach and lamb's lettuce, my reasoning being that the leafy plants would benefit from sharing the soil with the nitrogen adding properties of the beans. Well my salad leaves were devoured by birds and my spinach bolted and when a bed was freed up, I moved my broad bean plants to, what I though was a better position. I was wrong.

The plant above has borne two pods with no sign of further flowering. The tips were pinched out (maybe a little too early?) like the other plants. The two pods produced, however, are of a massive girth, at least in comparison to my other plants. This evening I decided to stop gazing at the plant in wonder and pick the two pods so I could get some enjoyment at least. The pods are pictured with a cherry tomato for scale:

When to harvest broad beans:

Squeeze the pods and if there is no empty space around the beans, they are ready to be picked. Sometimes the pods might look swollen and it seems like the beans are quite large, but when you open it up you find an vacant bean shaped hollow with a tiny bean inside. By squeezing the pod, you can determine if the bulge is bean or air.


I prise open the first pod to be met with a promising sight.

Opening the pod reveal three flawless, plump beans.

The second pod lets me down (see what I mean about the deceiving size of the pod), but still produces one good bean:

Is life too short to cook four beans?

Two minutes on the boil, a smidge of butter and black pepper and a beetroot leaf makes a banquet fit for an pixie.

So what have I learned about growing broad beans? I'm not sure to be honest. Maybe my two failed plants suffered from a second transplantation. Maybe I picked out the tips too early? Maybe they suffered from poor pollination. If so, why? A large comfrey plant only a metre from the beans draws alot of bees every day. Maybe there is a mineral deficiency in the soil. They are in a raised bed, which had my homemade compost added to it. Too much Nitrogen perhaps? Legumes can take care of their own Nitrogen requirements by harnessing it from the atmosphere. The successful plants, to the best of my memory, were planted in the bare ground with nothing added.

I think the Autumn planting, overwintering and planting out in the Spring with little fertilisation is the best way to go. My crop last year was far superior.

My Garden: 18th June 2014

A belter of a heatwave has been bestowed upon us, temperatures well into the twenties each day, and it is magical to witness the garden thrive in the presence of such sunshine. We are spending most of our days in the garden, eating our meals there, lying on the grass and eating straight from the plants. Life is sweet.

 

This year I planted some broad bean plants beside my garlic, since learning that they are not recommended companions. Well I cannot complain at face value as my plants are bursting with pods, while another two broad bean plants in another area of the garden, in a bed of their own, are looking miserable with tatty pods. I hope pairing beans with alliums does not have an adverse effect on taste because it certainly doesn't seem to be reducing my yield.

Ah the humble mange tout, one of the first treats each season and this year my eight month old baby had dibs on the first pod. The crunch of green between tiny teeth brought smiles of glee to his face, and filled me with warmth and pride.

My various brassica plants have taken off since moving from pot to bed. The netting is to protect from birds and the cabbage white butterfly (mother of the destructive caterpillar).

I'm proud of my straight lines! Beetroot in the background (don't forget to sample the leaves - a very satisfying salad leaf that brings great colour as well as taste to your plate) and carrots in the foreground. Unless you want minature veg, make sure you have given sufficient space between seedlings. Thinning carrots can attract the carrot fly so try to avoid it. Beetroot seed can be a cluster of a few seeds so even if you have given ample space at sowing time, check again when the seedlings have established as you could have two or three plants develop from the one seed. If this happens, transplant the extra seedlings to a new spot.

A great sign on my weathered tomato plants - flower buds. We will have fruit! These plants were not looking well a few months ago. Two plants cracked in the wind, but I managed to sprout new plants from the remains. When the flowers develop, I will start using tomato feed. Or maybe just comfrey tea, I'm not sure yet. To date, I have given an organic general purpost feed a few times. I have been regularly picking off side shoots also.

A few brassica plants still need to be bedded, and my leeks need some attention. I'll leave that for another post.

My Garden: 19th June 2013

Spying slug damage starting to appear on some of my broad bean pods, I cut my losses and stripped the plants bare, blanching and freezing the remains of the crop. As we’ve been eating beans straight of the plant for the last six weeks, I’m pretty happy with the results. I strongly recommend planting your broad beans in Autumn [as is often recommended] because I shudder at the thought of how depleted my crop would have been if the young beans had to contend with the slugs and aphids of spring and summer.





Shelled beans ready for blanching and freezing. Time will tell how successfully I’ve preserved their taste…





In three weeks, my pea hedge has gone from this:





To this:

Branch parts stuck in the ground are proving good supports with a natural look.

Sweetcorn plants are almost ready for planting out. I’ve learned that the male flowers emerge before the female so to assist pollination in a small crop, collect pollen from the male flowers into an envelope and hand pollinate the female flowers when they emerge. Sweetcorn is naturally wind pollinated and best grown in blocks rather than lines, to assist the process.

Beetroot is coming on, and I’m planting a few more seeds every now and then. Looking forward to eating the young leaves

Radishes are protected by plastic bottles because it doesn’t take a big fat slug too much time to munch through a sweet little radish.

I hope the spuds look as good underground as they do overground

After a failure of tomato plant seedlings, I managed to salvage two plants so hopefully I’ll still manage to have a late small crop

Last year, we ate our first Brussel Sprouts on Christmas Day and they were beautiful so hoping for an even better crop this year.

And inside, my cactus is getting ready to flower its beautiful bloom that it bestows upon me once a year. It’s coming late this year. It has flowered as early as April some years.

This is how it looked last year: