Friday, June 6, 2014

A bean post

I had the day off work today (last minute decision) and decided to go over to the plot in the afternoon to make a dent in the weeding.  It was too hot for me so it was a bit uncomfortable.  I weeded around the strawberries and poppies and went home with a large carrier bag crammed full of broad bean pods, a handful of radishes (some of which were not nibbled by something) and 6 scapes from the elephant garlic.

Back at home, I got on with podding the beans.  I weighed them (yay me) and it turned out that 6.844kg of pods lead to 1.892kg of beans.  The bonus was that I had a helper.  Our 2.5 year old helped really nicely.  She liked the popping sound the pods made when breaking and the fact that they sprayed her in the face when she broke them.

For a quick dinner just now, I cooked a veggie stir fry involving some of the beans and half of the scapes.  I plan to cook some broad bean fritters tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Getting behind

The weeds are non-stop and I am way behind on pulling them out.  I hope to get some time over there on Friday evening and sometime on Sunday to do some therapeutic hand-weeding.  And to harvest some broad beans before they get too big.

I had the day off on Tuesday but only managed an hour of speed-transplanting.  My lovely husband made 4 120x40cm mesh tunnels and I finally took them over and planted some brussel sprouts, calabrese, purple sprouting and cabbages under them.  I also planted out some chard.  Getting very pushed for space though as digging isn't an option currently.  I didn't manage to plant out the celeriac but it is looking good.

The peas are growing now having been nibbled by something or other.  The Spring cabbages may be harvestable sometime soon.  The parsnips are growing nicely but I need to thin some of the stations out and fill in a few gaps.  The calendula has sped up and is bigger that the plants in our back garden.  I also need to thin out the beetroot and see if the carrots and beetroot have germinated at all.

The weeding needs stepping up in a major way.  The strawberry patch is being overtaken so is the priority.