Kitchen Garden Forum

I was a tad anxious as the local buses went into liquidation yesterday as no interest from buyers. Today was the last day in service. Fortunately as they went bust the neighbouring service has been able to take on the busier routes. The other service tried to buy it a way back but refused under the monopolies, but as gone bust the rule does not apply. The new service starts on Saturday for my journey to the plot which is pretty amazing given the short notice, not as many buses nor routes covered to date but they will cherry pick the busiest routes first. Also willing to take on the others drivers as well & honouring their usual £3,000 incentive to them as well. (Sounds good but that stops them from leaving if they accept it for 3yrs).

I can walk to the plot through the woods in about 40mins which is fine on the way down but a much slower slog home carrying the harvest & generally knackered from the hours put in during the time down there & the bus stop is only a couple of blocks from home.

Westi
It does seem that almost daily new challenges are occurring to make life more difficult and complicated for many of us. I think we,re going to see more local services being cut. Indeed the entire Borough Council adjacent to us has recently gone bankrupt . Needing any form of transport to a plot must make life difficult especially when you've worn yourself out labouring on it. It,s a shame there aren't more sites within easy distance of home for people who need them.

40 minutes walk! Wow!
I'm clearly lucky in having just a 10 minute walk.

Meanwhile:-

. The Met Office said on Thursday that the heatwave and dry weather show no signs of letting up, with little rain forecast for the next week and temperatures that could rise to the mid-30s.

Meanwhile I am in Germany and glory be!

Have you thought about a bike Westi?

Electric is best of course.

I can imagine Westi on one of those old Tradesman bikes. I have got one in the back of the shed….been there for well over 20 years….

Very pleased, the 54 runner beans I sowed, all of them have germinated…..

Well done OH. Don,t forget to smother them with sun cream!
Are you hoping to get a second outdoor crop or is this for a poly tunnel?
Not sure how many days from germination to cropping but with the current weather we,re having I guess anything is possible.

I believe there are parts of the world where the climate permits two crops per year but that would probably be a freak one for UK runner beans.
Will follow with interest

I need the sun cream for myself, Primrose….
This is the third sowing, the second ones are nearly up to the top of the canes and just coming into flower….and this lot are going outside too….i’m hoping to still be picking to the end of October, weather permitting.
The first lot are really struggling in this heat….
I do a lot of late sowing, and when a lot of the allotments have been cleared, I still have a lot of things growing….it does make for a lot of extra work though.

Weirdly my red flowered runners are not at all happy with the heat - getting big seeds when really small & a red flush to the outer edge which is too tough to go through the shredder hand held thing I have. The white flowered ones were slower to take off but faring much better now & big small seeded tender beans.

As is my way there is a question in this statement! The red ones were given to me by my neighbour who gave me some beans last year which were fine & tasty. Is this the hot weather causing this or could have the saved seeds been cross pollinated?

Different varieties definitely perform differently depending on weather conditions….the white flowered ones, seem to set a lot better in hot conditions, compared to red flowered ones.

I don't grow runner beans we are not that keen on them, but with any seeds, how they are stored can have an effect are you sure they are not from f1 plants?

Just a thought. As we are saving our tap & bathwater to water the plants. Will we be getting a discount from the Sewage Company.

Yes to the first question but No to the second sadly.
We here in Thames Water region are still having to fund last year's circa £500K bonus to their Chief Executive, despite the mothballing of their water desalination plant. It's a raw topic with gardeners round here as you can imagine, especially if we have a hosepipe ban involved.

Had my 3 Cousin’s up from Basildon yesterday, Shallot Man….I did ask if they knew you!

oldherbaceous wrote:Had my 3 Cousin’s up from Basildon yesterday, Shallot Man….I did ask if they knew you!

O.H. Like the SAS. Being a member of BRFC, we tend to operate under the cover of darkness.