Kitchen Garden Forum

Whilst the weather's been non-summery, we have had a brilliant crop of runner beans this year. They are tasty and I'm getting a good number of long straight ones too.

Limka stringless French Beans have also done well, through our Cobra french beans don't seem to have thrived.

Also the Squash plants seem to appreciate the weather and we have several sizeable Crown Prince fruits on the go. Several fellow allotmenters have massive looking pumpkins on the go too.

How about the rest of you?

Dear Colin, i must say i'm very pleased with my Runner beans this year.

The complete opposite. Still no runner beans and a neighbour down the road also has none. The Butternut squash Ponca has produced 0 fruits and the Winter Squash has managed 1. I have just come back from near Bedford and I noticed how well the Runners and Squash had done there - but the soil is very sandy and free-draining and whilst it might have been wet there, here we have had 12 inches of rain in August. So despite reasonably drainage the soil is very water-logged.

I also have Cobra French Beans and they have performed even worse than the Runners. Looks like it's a fair weather performer.

Somewhat surprisingly the Sweetcorn here looks good and if we do get some warmth maybe the crop will be good.

Looks like the kind of year when we find out which varieties are suited to our 'normal' climate and maybe the point about sourcing British-raised seeds is particularly valid.

Much the same here, Colin. Beans very poor, squashes also not great, but sweetcorn excellent. My tomatoes have been really poor too. Only harvested one bowl full so far-too wet and cloudy and cold to ripen, I fear.
Suggestions for varieties of any veg that loves sunless, wet conditions please, for next year.

My Cobra beans have been disappointing too. Even when small they seem to have all gone thick and knobbly and many of my runner bean flowers haven't set. They normally go on flowering into September but all seem to have faded out early this year. However, this morning I picked about 15 sweet corn cobs which were very sweet despite the lack of sun. Desperately waiting for this to ripen my outdoor peppers and tomatoes.

Hi Primrose. What is your soil like? I rather think that it is not only the lack of sunshine that the Beans don't like, but having their roots permanently waterlogged. My second batch of Runners and Cobra, are on a patch of slightly raised ground and haven't suffered so much as the others. The Clapham (Bedford) allotments that I visited have very sandy soil and the beans obviously like that.

Colin, My runner beans are marvellous,can't keep on top of the picking so many,also nearly all are long and straight, in previous years they were mostly twisted, I grow Painted Lady and Wisley Magic.

The squashes are big and plentiful except none of the butternut grew,strange as they were new seeds from wilkinsons where as all the others were seeds I saved from last year,a mixed lot.

My soil is sandy.
Bren

our french and runner beans have had a very short season after a fortnight or so of picking thet just havnt produced any more flowers, its lucky ive grown 4 different varieties which have come at different times, the beans have also been coarser and quick to go past it.
the autumn raspberries are producing large fruit and still flowering with a mass of bumble bees doing their stuff.

I am in the lucky position of saying that I have too many Runner and French Climbing Beans. There are still more flower and more to come. The French Beans Cobra and Diamant sulked for about a month at the begining of the season but now are in full swing.
I gave away three supermarket bags full away yesterday. (mainly Runners)
I have just finished picking Hurst Greens-haft Peas
2 x 33ft rows and after lunch commence to will shell and freeze them which will take me until the early hours of tomorrow morning.
I will also freeze some French Beans whole but do not like frozen Runner Beans. The French Beans I freeze on an open tray and put them in a large bag and just take what I need to.
JB.

I've had much the same, beans very slow to get going, but lovely and productive now. I grow Black Magic runners and they are lovely and tender and set very freely.

Like Johnboy, I prefer the climbing french beans to freeze and am getting masses from the Mr. Fern's purple flowered one from HSL and the Cherokee Trail of Tears and Cosse Violette are very good too.

The pumpkins and squashes have only got going in the past few weeks and have now set plenty of fruit, but they were so late starting we will need a very good autumn for them to get to a decent size and ripen.

Has anyone else noticed what a beautiful scent some of the squash flowers have? I've got a stray one in the greenhouse and the whole place was filled with gorgeous perfume when I went in this morning. I couldn't think what it was at first but tracked it down to a couple of newly opened squash flowers.

Dear Plumpudding, thats most interesting about the scented Squash plant, i don't suppose you know what variety it is do you?

Bren wrote:Colin, My runner beans are marvellous,....also nearly all are long and straight
The squashes are big and plentiful except none of the butternut grew

Hi Bren, I have had almost exactly the same experience as you with beans & squash, including thye disappointing butternut.
Likewise, my runners have always been a mixture of curly in previous years, but this year they're generally straight and over 12".