On Sowing French Beans With Jon Bon

I find I crack through 24-pot trays far more efficiently when I've Jon Bon Jovi singing to me as the rain falls gently on the glass house. 

http://youtu.be/59NoqP02ZYM

 I filled 3" pots with B&Q's finest then push two beans per pot about half an inch into the compost.  Conventional horticultural advice always rattles on about double sowing then discarding the weaker of the two.  I think that's a bit miserable, actually; if the seeds make the effort to grow the least we can do is plant the two together.  And let's face it, two bean seeds planted a few inches from your 8' bean stick isn't going to have any detrimental effect.

http://youtu.be/NvR60Wg9R7Q

Here's the laundry list;

Buerre de Rocquencourt - that's the yellow pod

Amethyst - that's the purple one

Cordon Bleu - the green one.  Oh, OK.

On Dreaming Of Runner Beans

Lingua di Fuoco; Borlotti Beans

 





 

Home Again & The Difference Between Summer & Winter Squash

I'm knackered.  I've worked like a slave this spring mostly ego-stroking and hand-holding (things I find terrifically difficult), and shuttling back and forth between airports (which I love).  Last night I threw my laundry on to wash, opened a bottle of Gavi and sat out in my garden and just looked at the greenery.  I further stoked my sense of well being by taking something out of the freezer and by the time it pinged I knew I'd be fine. 

My garden has survived its sporadic attention / neglect quite well.  The carrot seedlings are all through, the radishes too.  All my delishy climbing beans and French beans are all through and looking very lush and eager to climb.  The tomatoes are small and look a little on the "struggling" side, but we're still in May so there's time enough for a growth spurt.  All the apple, pear and plum blossoms have developed into lovely little fruitlets.  The Merlot vine has gone bananas after its prolonged freezing under the winter snows, and my lovely tayberry and blackberry canes are rampaging over their wires and up into the hedges and trees.

The pumpkins and squashes are a bit hit and miss, probably due to the less than ideal, erratic attention I've given them since early May, and the age of some of the seeds.  Never mind; over 48 Butternuts have germinated, and at least 7 Turk's Turbans are already stretching upwards.  I've even managed to grow three Harlequin seedlings from seeds I scraped out and saved from the parent squash I bought in April 2006 at Sainsburys.  All it took to break a 5-year dormancy was a good soaking after planting and then a fortnight's neglect in the heated glasshouse.  I've had similar success with my summer squash and courgettes.  Here's the laundry list;
Black Beauty
Grisette de Provence
Patty Pan
Yellow Scallop
Golden Zucchini
Di Nozzi

What's the difference between a summer and a winter squash? It pretty much boils down to keeping qualities.  Summer squashes have generally thin, edible skins and soft flesh and seeds (think of all those watery courgettes); winter squash have generally harder skins, firm flesh and hard seeds (think of the real threat of amputation each time you attempt to halve a butternut.)

Buon Giorno, Boys

I harvested my crop of Borlotti beans today; here they are. I set on 60 plants, but the wet summer encouraged a plague of slugs of Biblical proportions across the UK, and these miserable few beans are all that managed to grow. Oh well, these things happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee3CPfH2O_I&mode=related&search

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEAxJ6zGiWg&mode=related&search

This Year's Bean Crop

Well who'd have thought it! Quite a few of the beans survived the rabbits. And not only that, they survived the latest spring for decades, condensed when it finally arrived into a magnificent three-week explosion of scent and colour; and the longest, hottest, driest summer that brought about green growth at the expense of flowers and pods. Except there were pods, hiding under all that lush greenery.

The photo above is one of my favourite pictures this year. I shall save every one of the blue beans for planting next year and do a taste test in twelve months time.

Left to right in the picture above we have white beans, good for winter soups; the pale green beans, some lightly speckled with red, are a dwarf Borlotti that bore much of the brunt of the early feeding by the rabbits; then a few small ochre beans, these are Canadian Wonder and a great substitute for kidney beans, but smaller and sweeter; then a huge range of pink and purple splashed beans, large and juicy; then large purple/pink beans, again great for autumn and winter soups. To the back of the picture are the glossiest black beans you will ever see; and the stangest blue beans, that darken to an inky midnight blue on drying.

Lists, lists and again I say lists

I love coming home from the seaside to my garden, and there are few more delightful tasks than the eager stroll around the garden checking each little horticultural miracle. The size of the annuals thrown in any old way and thriving, the forgotten gloves and Felcos discovered under the bench by the hedge, the roses, the soft fruit, apple trees and herbs, all calling, "Welcome back!" and, "How was your holiday?" and "Look what we've been doing whilst you were away!"

And then I strolled into the vegetable garden. Pumpkins looking quite respectable, plenty of greenery and a respectable number of fat yellow flowers unfurling for the bees; sweet corn waist high; three netted tunnels of fat, outrageous brassicas; four long rows of field tomatoes each plant interplanted with its garlic bedfellow; wigwams of beans.... er, where are the beans? I've got 8 wigwams and two long rows of beans. The bloody rabbits had eated the lot. Feckers. That's the third set of beans I've set out, two lots of plants and finally good old fashioned beans dropped into a hole made with a finger dibbed into the soil up to the knuckle. Every bloody one chewed by those fur-coat-good-for-nothings.

Here's the obituary:

Fagiolo rampicante -
Borlotto lamon
Santa Anna
and some glossy black beans, white beans and brown speckled beans saved from last year

Fagiolo nano -
Slenderette
Borlotti
Canadian Wonder as these resemble kidney beans

Rabbit with tomatoes & balsamic vinegar

First shoot, skin and gut your rabbit. You must gut them pretty much immediately, so do that in the field, (or, as in the case in hand, in the garden...) Cut each rabbit into pieces and shake into a plastic bag of seasoned flour. Brown rapidly in a pan and transfer to your baking dish. Cover with the following sauce and cook uncovered for 40 minutes at 180'C basting midway with an extra 3 or 4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.

Sauté a large chopped onion with 3 or 4 cloves of finely chopped garlic in olive oil until transparent but not browned. Add 5 or 6 chopped tomatoes, season with salt and black pepper, handful of finely chopped rosemary, half a teaspoon tumeric, and one teaspoon of lightly toasted fennel seeds. Stir in 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar and simmer until sauce is thick and reduced. Pour over rabbit, and enjoy your french beans via the rabbit. Feckers.

Anyone with a prostate should eat brassicas three times a week

Thursday last week picked the first of the broad beans, snappy and full with their promise of buttery goodness. "The Sutton" is such a good old workhorse of a bean, it really isn't any wonder its been a favourite for decades. I picked a bucketful during the morning, and after boiling up some Jersey Royals threw the podded beans into the water, brought back to the boil and immediately drained, before serving up with parlsey sauce and a thick slice of best British gammon.

Good God but the British know how to eat.


Parsley sauce - make a simple roux (lightly toast off the flour in the oven for 10 mins first to cook out the floury-ness), using unsalted butter and farine de blé; add half a pint of milk, lots of salt and black pepper, then once thickening nicely throw in a very large bunch of finely chopped parsley leaves.

Ful medames - drop some broad beans into a pan of boiling water and return to boil then immediately drain (clearly this can really only be done with spanking fresh, very young beans), then tip into a bowl. Add some olive oil to the beans, together with about a teaspoon of cumin seeds and nicely sliced garlic cloves, about two. Zip up by squeezing a lemon's juice over, and season as if your life depended upon it. Mix together gently with your hands. You can add a roughly chopped bit of parsley, unless you have someone sexy coming to lunch, and you intend to be smiling at them a lot...

Lazy slut's supper - Boil up some new potatoes, and when ready drain and eat hot from pan, cutting them almost in half in your hand with a knife holding a slick of unsalted butter so that the butter cuts into the potato as you slice it. Dip into Maldon sea salt as you go.

Lazy slut on a diet's supper - as above, but leave out the salt, in which case it's hardly worth bothering to eat the potatoes in the first place.