At this time of year I find it a problem sourcing seeds. My German garden centre and food and beer providers seem to have put gardening stuff away for the winter.
Luckily my other cheap gardening supplier: The Range still continue selling gardening supplies like bulbs and seeds...
Now Fava or Broad Beans are the last thing to sow before winter.
I bought a packet of them for just 75 Cents and I sowed two fish boxes of them in the polytunnel today:
It will be good to see something growing through the winter. Beans are Legumes and the extract nitrogen from the air and release it through their root nodules. Instead of taking out goodness they add goodness to the soil. Like the banana, beans are full of potassium. Which is very good for your blood pressure and your heart.
Have you planted any Broad Beans yet?
I am always weeding my raised veg beds and I scattered to big buckets of leaves around my leeks. Hopefully they will suppress the weeds and feed the soil when they break down?
Any once else mulch with leaves? I also mulch with straw. With the leaves I am imitating the rich leaf blanket of the Autumn floor and feeding the worms, beneficial anaerobic bacteria and much needed plant food like carbon.
Newly mulched oil tank (repurposed) raised bed.
Hang on. If you sow seeds in a fish box I would expect you to harvest fish and not legumes because they would surely be sown in a legume box. Never mind Dave - we all make mistakes - just like the American electorate yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI found the fish boxes on a neae by beach YP. I filled it with well rotted fym and homemade compost and sowed the beans in it.
ReplyDeleteI guess you are talking about the multi headed monster called democracy? I don't think Trump will bw there long. Its his deputy that worries me. I will stick to watching gardening You Tube videos and stop watching the news me thinks.
My broad beans have shoots showing, I got the same type as last year, they grew well and gave a good harvest, these harvest much earlier, which allows me to plant a summer crop in the space.
ReplyDeleteYou are in front of me Marlene. I wonder what we shall plant to follow the Broad Beans?
ReplyDeleteBrassicas are the crops to follow beans Marlene. I try to rotate my crops.
ReplyDeleteI am doing the same, my dad always rotated his crops in his garden.
DeleteIt's a good way of building up fertility and avoiding problems in the future. Have you grown any green manures? I have grown mustard and dug it in the spring time.
DeleteJust like Tom and Barbara...
ReplyDeleteYes The Good Life. Thankfully Mrs Leadbetter doesn't live next door JayCee.😀
ReplyDeleteI must get the beans in this week. Thanks for the reminder x
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome GZ. I am going to sow some cabbages in the polytunnel this week for spring or when they are ready to pick.
ReplyDeleteBroad beans do well here and husband loves them. Thanks for reminding me
ReplyDeleteSome gardeners plant them in spring Linda. Planting them now is supposed to give them more immunity to the likes of Black Fly especially if it is a very harsh and cold winter. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThat is very cool about planting beans in the fall. I had never heard this! You are ever educational. I would like you to go back and explain, step by step, growing hydrangeas from cuttings. Do you cut the leaves? (It did not look as if you had.) Why is that important? Do you do this in the fall? In the spring?
DeleteThanks Debby. I took softwood cuttings this year in late summer and cut their leaves to a quarter of their original size to prevent any transpiration and them not having to feed the full leaves. Then I dipped the cuttings in rooting powder and dibbed an hole in plant pots filled with homemade compost or sand and placed plastic bottle cloches over them and watered them about once a week if that. The bottles help retain the moisture and stips the plant from drying out. A few weeks later I give the cuttings a gentle tug and if they show any resistance I know they have grown roots. The leaves will also start growing back. You can also take hardwood cuttings now when shrubs are dormant.
ReplyDeleteI never realised that about beans. It's good to know.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jules. They fix nitrogen in the soil.
ReplyDelete