Wednesday 7 July 2010

Bean caning this evening


Popped up this evening on my own to install some much needed support for our rapidly growing runner beans - they've already shot past the 3 foot canes we'd plonked in as a temporary measure.

Lessons learnt when installing cane structures:
- look at the canes before you leave the shop. Skinny ones are no good! 
- Bigger is better!
- Do not assume they will all be of equal length.
- Stepladder or box would be useful...



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Tuesday 6 July 2010

Our first harvest!

The last few weeks have been very good on the wedding, engagement party and housewarming party front (none of them mine, by the way), but pretty poor on the gardening front. It's quite hard to have an allotment and a social life, it seems. The weeds and the pest don't really take account of this though and have well and truly invaded us. Our beans are covered in aphids, our cabbages have been chewed up by slugs, our gooseberries (every single one) were devoured by some unidentified trespasser and the whole plot has been taken over by weeds of every kind. We've got a lot of work to do. You can't just leave an allotment to get on with it, apparently.

However, we have had some success! On Sunday night we ate our first meal using produce that we grew ourselves. Broad beans and pototoes (along with some other, non-homegrown items. Absolutely delicious! Here the food is, before and after. Yum.