Good and Bad News

When we were in Italy on holiday a few years ago, I bought some of the local seed (this is permitted as they are part of the EC, 6 packets, if I recall correctly). I bought some tall “French” beans and some Dwarf ones, with violet coloured pods. I have grown purple podded beans before, but haven’t seen climbing ones for sale for a while. I found they were delicious… better than the ones I’d bought in England. The packet is old, now and the beans not fertile, so planting them in a tray would be a waste. I tried “chitting” them by putting them in a small bottle with holes in the cap and washing them twice daily, treating them like sprouting beans. They didn’t sprout so I knew they were not viable. Then I found some seeds self-saved from two years ago and tried the same trick. I got excited when I found a couple had chitted, and potted all the soaked seeds into individual cells, and put them in the propagator. Two came up, and I wondered where the others were, so I stuck my finger into the compost (as you do.) Yuck, the others have rotted, so it seems few of those beans are viable. I’m going to have to “sprout” a lot of the remaining beans and hope I find a few more viable ones.

The good news is that I have two plants. I’m intending to put these into a new bed in my greenhouse, but that is cluttered at the moment. So I’ll pot them up, cherish them, then plant them later. “French” beans do well in a greenhouse because they are self-fertile, and don’t need the bees to pollinate them. Mind you, I have seen some bees around so an early start to all my beans might help.

Because my garden is overshadowed, the growing season is cut short, especially with sun-lovers like the curcurbits, which need lots of sunshine to form female flowers. So an early start is essential to get the best out of them. This means my greenhouse is packed this time of year.

Since my garden has been so neglected over the past few years (What a tyrant novel-writing is) I have several projects and a lot of tidying up to do this year. The first thing I did when we moved here is make some raised beds with timber which I thought had been treated. That has rotted away, which means I need to replace the timber. I am a bit vexed about this (understatement). I expected the timber to last twenty-five years.

I am also vexed that the raspberry plants which I bought as disease resistant were not, and have succumbed to virus and rust. They have to go. This leaves me with a bed ideal for the runner beans. I replaced the rotten timber with old slate tiles from a reclamation yard, three deep, buried in the soil against the concrete path. I’m not sure how these will do, because they are on edge and may well shatter in the frosts, but they won’t rot. They were quite cheap, too, since I didn’t mind broken tiles. I have several other raised beds to rejuvenate. At the moment, though, they are covered in clutter.

I keep reminding myself it's only March. OK, nearly April. But I don't have to get everything done at once.