Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm certainly no fan of the stuff & it certainly goes no where near the compost heap. Well technically that is a lie, the other sort with the multiple stems has found it's way in there as it has always been in the back beds. Not one redeeming feature then? Except it's nice flower but I don't spend anytime admiring them just tracing from the flowering vine to the root & digging deep.

My Runner beans are so slow this year, are anyone elses the same?

I'm only growing cobra this year. they have been painfully slow, there's finally about, I think, 3 beans almost ready. What we'll do with three beans, I've no idea, its a bit like The Good Life and their one egg.

To cheer you up OH into thinking yours are doing OK here are mine. I thought it was my (pleasant) May disorganisation that had done it though perhaps not. I don't know what the flowers trying to come at the base are going to do. We'll just have to eat Greenshaft peas instead!

Wow, those peas look great, Geoff! Do you never get problems with house sparrows? We had to give up growing peas because the sparrow families descended on the plants and completely pulled them to pieces when nipping off the juicy growing points.
Conversely, our runner beans are doing fine, are about 6' high now and starting to flower.

No problem with sparrows on the peas though a rabbit got in last year and liked them. We have a garden full of sparrows with young all over the place from several of my nest boxes but they are mainly tree sparrows, I wonder if that makes a difference. Mind they are shredding French marigolds.

Returning to the lack of rain (or surplus of it for you southerners), I have just totted up our rain total for June and it comes to 18mm (of that, 15mm fell on 25 June), but considering we had a very dry spell at the end of May as well, things are not good. Luckily, we are not on a meter and I have been using the hose on the vegetables, especially on those growing in pots.

We had a little more at just under 22mm, even less than the 26mm of the hot dry June of 2018. According to my solar panels we had 10% less sunshine than June 2018 but they were still the best two Junes since I have had the panels. Watering is a pain, with them just setting I have been giving those peas a can per row per day.

Another strange year indeed....annoying your beans are slow too, Geoff....but your peas do look good.

We should be thankful we're not getting the 47 degrees F they're suffering in the US and Canada at the moment ! At least nobody there will be grumbling about their lawns growing too quickly. - catching fire and smouldering more likely !

That's it,my plot is stuffed full.No more space.All I can hope for is that the crops sown will do as well as the weeds!!!

Mine too, but it's only 2 x 4m! The garlic will be coming up soon, it looks amazing above ground, lets hope its as good below. I can then plant some calabrese, if the persistant slug army doesn't finish them all off first, I only have 4 plants remaining. All the kale and PSB seedlings have been demolished this week.

It's so dispiriting when this happens retropants, especiallly when you have a limited growing area.

It is Primrose. We've been launching them over the garage roof! A few nights ago we picked up about 40 of the fat little buggers (sorry!) Some of them missed (I can't throw for toffee) and ended up next door. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg, but it all helps I suppose. My husband is now the sole slug slinger.

They come back from where you sling them, hungrier after the exercise.