Kitchen Garden Forum

livefree wrote:

Shallot Man wrote:Clive. have grown cobra. You will not be disappointed.

what is cobra ? a type chilli ?

Climbing French Bean.

I have noticed how cold it can get at night, all these clear skies. Afternoons like June or July, nights like February.

I have grown French beans Cobra for two or three years and it's fine but it does like a good summer, as all French beans. My seeds were soaked between sheets of damp kitchen roll for three days until the little rootlets start showing. This morning I sowed them into root trainers. They will stay in the house until they show above ground, then go into the slightly heated greenhouse before being planted outside at the beginning of June. Never take any chances with the weather!

By the way, the rain missed us again. We have now had just 19mm of rain since mid-March, of this, 14.6mm (just about half an inch in old money) fell in the WHOLE of April. We were busy with the watering cans.

livefree wrote:beans will be kill in what temperature ?

Any ground frost on the foliage will finish them off. That's usually temperatures around 3C and below.

Cobra is a French Bean but it is climbing type in the same way that Runner Beans climb.

In my area of East Lincolnshire the first week of May is the time we can first think of sowing runner bean seed outside... but even then it can turn cold.

I chanced it earlier this year...but time will tell...as they are yet to come up.

I still remember the year we did a video diary at work..1995. That year about middle of June we had a night when it was colder than we had over the previous Christmas....brought things to a stop and I well remember my sweetcorn went rather yellow....

I tend to go by observation of the week ahead weather forecast... but more often than not, just how the weather feels to me.

C.

alan refail wrote:

livefree wrote:beans will be kill in what temperature ?

Any ground frost on the foliage will finish them off. That's usually temperatures around 3C and below.

Was told by an old gardener many moons ago. Should you get a late frost. Get up early before the sun comes up. And spray with tepid water.

Some years ago we had got some Osteospermums out in the nursery sales area when we were hit by a late frost....they were saved by two things. One that the overnight water sprinkler had been left to come on and when we arrived at work the Osteospermum leaves were covered in a glaze of ice.... and quickly moving them into the shade behind the potting shed and they were fine....just darkened the foliage a little and they went a little more stocky than normal...which in fact was good.

C.

...and to update....I have just seen that two of my Runner Beans are coming up.

C.

I have done that spraying trick in the past, Shallot Man, and it does work.

A few more Cobra beans have popped up as have a couple more runners

....and also I see the "Spring Onion" Shimonita are appearing...they were sown on 17/4. The sealed packet was from year ending Sep 2008....sow by by 2010....it's good to get a few jobs caught up

C.

Away from the kitchen garden may I have a little advice please?

I'm going to prune the forsythia now it is finished. Do I use these offcuts for cuttings or wait for some regrowth and make specific cuts to plant up?

You can use the offcuts - they root very easily. I created a hedge once, just by sticking in the offcuts from a single plant.

Fabulous. Thanks Diane.

I have just seen the weather forecast for Sunday and Monday, I do hope they have got it wrong....

I heard the hint of some weather on the forecast during Countryfile....

Also clicked on radar box over a bite of lunch and seen that the Hawker Hunter is up an about again. ...now I've got my head in a radar screen. ..won't be good for progress in the front shrubbery..that I started earlier.....

C.