Out in the Garden

We've had such a lovely weekend that it seemed a shame to stay inside so I've been out in the garden for the first time this year.  I moved all the plants back to their regular spots and planted out my little Mange Tout and Broad Beans.

A nice easy one to start - only the mint is new, all the others survived the winter

Mangetout - Before

After

Broad Bean - Before

I hope the Broad Beans like it better than the Strawberries did

I think we'll definitely get to eat some this year

Those teensy green bits = lettuces!

Of Beans and Peas

Now that my little plants are growing well I've been thinking about what do with them so I hopped on the net to look for some guidance.

My first lesson was that just because the seeds like kind of similar it doesn't mean that the plants grow in the same conditions!  I'd kind of assumed that because the seeds are kind of similar and peas are quite like beans that they must grow in the same way and thus I planted them all at the same time.  I should have checked what the bean packet meant when it said to plant 'mid spring'... seems dumb now but that obviously meant April/May not Feb/March!

So the peas should be fine as they like cooler weather, as should the broad beans but I appear to have planted the runner beans about 2 months earlier than I should have!  I'm not giving up on them yet but they may become unmanageably large before it's safe to let them out into the garden... we shall see.  I shall probably plant some more at the proper time; a nice backup in case these fail or an interesting comparison if they don't.

I planted all my peas/beans into the same little modular trays that I used for the tomato seed; in hindsight this may not have been the best plan... I can't believe how sturdy the little peas/beans are; such lovely thick stems... such active root systems.  I've potted them all on into 8cm peat pots today which will hopefully keep them going until the garden is ready for them but I had to do a fair bit more coaxing of roots out of the drainage holes than I expected.

From what I've seen the mange-tout's have fairly delicate stems and put down thready, wandering roots (which built their own network under the modules), they came out nice and easy but left all their soil behind.

Pea Seedling

The broad beans have very thick white roots which seemed to head straight down in a nice neat fan pattern; oddly there didn't seem to be any particular correlation between root length and plant size.

Broad Bean Seedling

The runner beans have crazy strong roots and took all their soil with them when they came, they also tended to put their main root through the drainage hole; longer roots definitely went with bigger plants.

Runner Bean Seedling

Amazingly every single seed I planted germinated; I originally planted loads of seeds to allow for my tendency to kill small things with alarming skill.  I guess it'll be a day or so until I see if I've inflicted any lasting harm on my plants by transferring them into the new pots, hopefully they'll make it but I wouldn't be surprised if a few are a little shocked from the transition.

Pictures from http://www.sciencephoto.com/ as my camera battery was dead!

Om nom nom

There are only so many pictures I can show of plants-with-fruit-on before it starts to get a bit repetitive so I'm making a bit of a detour onto the subject of just what exactly I'm going to do with all these things once they've grown.  Entertainingly I hadn't really given this much thought when I was planting and I think next year I may try and grow things that will be useful for eating.  Nonetheless it makes a nice change to have some garden-fresh veg in our meals and it has prompted me to cook some new things because there's no way I'm letting it go to waste after all the effort I put into growing it!

And so I present - Salmon with Broad Bean cous cous and cherry tomatoes

This was from a recipe on goodtoknow.co.uk and was both tasty and stupidly easy to cook... my favourite combination :D  In short, stick the salmon in the oven, boil the beans in water just before it's ready and cover the cous cous with water per packet instructions, combine cous cous & beans, add a little lemon juice and serve!

I'd never eaten a broad bean before and was pleasantly surprised by them... probably not enough to go out and buy some but I shall certainly be eating the rest of the ones I've grown.

Where did those come from?

The last couple of days we've had absolutely horrible weather in Southampton but today I managed to catch a break in the rain and dash out to check on the plants!

I was a little dissappointed when I looked at my broadbeans because they've lost all of their pretty white flowers

But then I looked a bit closer and saw these absolutely massive beans that have sprung in to being over the last few days - the scale is a bit hard to tell from the piccy but the largest are almost the length of my hand!  I don't think I have ever eaten a broad bean intentionally before so I may have to go find some recipes.  At the moment this looks pretty good:

Penne with ricotta, broad beans and mint
250g of pasta (anything short and vaguely tubular will do)
200g broad beans
125g ricotta
1 large bundle of fresh mint
Fresh lemon (juice and zest)
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Cook the pasta in boiling water - you can even add the beans at the end to save on washing up. Put in a bowl and stir in the ricotta, lemon juice and zest, and crushed raw garlic. Drizzle the oil on top, sprinkle over the mint and eat.

Recipe by Kate Carter from an article at guardian.co.uk

I know what it is!

The mystery is solved!  I am growing Broad Beans which means that I appear to have a Spring GroBox and should thus also eventually see Onions, Peas, Spinach, Carrots, Ruby Chard, Tomatoes, Radish and Lettuce springing up!