Kitchen Garden Forum

. . . ? mine is in great shape, I think. New to this gardening lark as you know, all a bit hit and miss . . . but this is how things are progressing in pictures:

Tomatoes, is where it all started, 58 years ago, a very early memory of my Auntie Ivy who lived just round the corner, used to grow tomatoes in here green house, she save the little under developed ones for me. Never forgot that flavour . . . could not stand modern supermarket red balls of tasteless mush. Three years ago, listening to Bob Flowerdue, enthusing about the flavour of the yellow cherry tomato 'Sun Gold'. It hit a nerve, found some plants, in a tiny local nursery by chance, a couple of grow bags on the flower planters . . .



The next year, I turned another flower planter into growing a few lettice



And last year the side boarder was put over to beans and more salad, very shaded, bit concerned, but as you can see, this is this years crop coming on well.



A 10x20 foot green house is a wast as a glorified shed . . . So set to cleared it early this year. My early posts show it bear, and the vine with a short back and sides. The ring growing seems to be working, Aubergines, Sweet Peppers, Courgettes and a Mellon are doing OK as far as I can tell, nothing has died so far



The Vine, despite my cutting attack is romping away, the fruits are bigger at this stage than the ripe grapes in the previous years of neglect.



The plumb tree, still neglected is full of fruit, a cooking plumb, goes well with blackberries in a 'Blackberry and Plumb Crumble'



I know we are into veg., here, but I make one concession to a few cottage style flowers in one corner, to give a little colour.



Thats it so far, you help and encouragement has paid off up untill now, I am loving my garden, next job to dig some of the lawn. Finding that a bit of a mental barrier, majour comitment at such an early stage I feel???

Thank you once again for you help, I hope you enjoy the pictures.
CJS

HI CJS

I am really envious - looks wonderful! Everything
is better and neater than mine - I blame the dogs,
work and appointments but it's down to effort and
you are obviously putting it in.

Good Luck for a Great Harvest - 1/2 way there already.

Westi

Hi CJS

Wonderful pictures matched only by your enthusiasm

Keep at it through this promising summer, and best wishes for tasty crops.

Alan

Evening CJS, i must say i am very impressed with your progress, and it takes quite a lot to impress me these days.

Glad you're enjoying it, and love the photo's too.

Looks lovely and I'm particularly envious of your climbing beans. They look so much healthier than mine which are in a nice sunny border, so perhaps it's a bit of a myth that runner beans don't like being planted in shade. Despite their sunny position most of mine haven't even seriously started to try and climb their canes yet. I've a horrible feeling they don't like the bagged composted manure I dig in beforehand and yet most of my tomatoes, using the same stuff seem to be doing OK. By the time you've dug up the rest of your lawn you should have a really nice vegetable patch (and just think of all the money you'll save on bedding plants !

Primrose wrote:Looks lovely and I'm particularly envious of your climbing beans. They look so much healthier than mine which are in a nice sunny border, so perhaps it's a bit of a myth that runner beans don't like being planted in shade. Despite their sunny position most of mine haven't even seriously started to try and climb their canes yet. I've a horrible feeling they don't like the bagged composted manure I dig in beforehand and yet most of my tomatoes, using the same stuff seem to be doing OK. By the time you've dug up the rest of your lawn you should have a really nice vegetable patch (and just think of all the money you'll save on bedding plants !

Hi Primrose, thank you for you kind comments, I'm so green at this gardening lark. I too was concerned about the shaded position, that fence runs 'almost due East-West, the picture is looking East. This is the third year with beans in that position, thats probably wrong . . . However, I do dig a trench line it with 3 or 4 layers of newspaper, then put in a few inches off the top of compost heap no.1; semi rotted kitchen wast, lawn mowing's and this year a couple of fork fulls of manure. Compost heap no.2 is all the new wast.

I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing? Remember my Grandad used to do the newspaper thing, held the moisture he said? I also sprinkle grow more pellets liberally.

The bean plants were planted mid May, given to me this year by a good friend, most of my seeds failed!!! He told me they were a very old variety . . . Scarlet something or other????

CJS

Scarlett Emperor ? That's one of the most widely grown runner bean varieties.

Primrose wrote:Scarlett Emperor ? That's one of the most widely grown runner bean varieties.

Thanks Primrose, I have a terrible!!! memory, seems to get worse as the years go by? Does popularity = the best flavour, disease resistance, yield etc???

As I say, my bean plants failed this year, only a couple germinated. May have something to do with the fact that I saved pods from last year, did not store them properly, and then only used garden soil in pots to start them off . . . That was before I saw the 'light', feel like 'Saul on the road to Damascus' . . .

Something I tried last year, was french climbing beans, only managed a couple of plants, actually planted out half a dozen, but the slugs attacked them.

Any old how, the couple of plants that did survive, produced lovely flavourfull juicy pods. Tried them this year, total failure, used the seeds left over in the packet from the previous year. Have a feeling I was to early as well? Any advise on French Climbing beans, Hazel really has an aversion to taking the string off the English runners, and I must admit we both liked the flavour of the french bean

CJS

It looks great! Like everyone else, I'm envious of those beans. I'm sure mine are shorter now then when I put them out.

I grow both French Climbing and Runner beans, to try an ensure a better yield as French Beans flowers are self-fertile apparently and don't need bees to pollinate them like Runners do but I do find them rather unreliable in germinating and they definitely don't like the cold or windy weather when they're first planted out. I don't save the seed though. One year when I did, they germinated but I ended up with dwarf plants which didn't climb. I grow Cobra, Blue Lake, and Blauhilde (which is a purple podded bean which turns green whe cooked) - sold by Thompson & Morgan.