bean enclosures

On a visit to North Devon at the weekend we looked around the gardens of Clovelly Court. They are a good example of a walled Victorian kitchen garden, the walls providing the necessary shelter from winds off the sea and salt spray and creating a great micro-climate. There are superb glasshouses with the original fittings where they grow peaches, apricots etc  and extensive bed areas growing all manner of vegetables and cutting flowers.

I was particularly interested in how they were growing their runner beans. The usual rows of canes had been sunk into the soil in a two parallel lines. Resting against each line of canes was a simple frame made of timber, with polythene tacked to it, and this was held in place with another cane pushed into the ground and tied to the framework. The plastic covered frames made a giant cold frame, as a sheet of perspex had been rested against the end of the row. The 3rd and 4th pictures above illustrate it.

I thought this was a really neat idea, offering weather and pest protection to the beans whilst they are little. I wanted to ask more details but unfortunately there was no-one to ask.

Clovelly is famous for its donkeys. They used to be used  to transport goods up and down the steeply cobbled streets , which are unsuitable for motor vehicles. They are not used for carrying goods now, but donkeys are still kept for children to ride on. Donkey “by products” are used extensively in the kitchen garden on the flower and vegetable beds. A neat symmetry.

onions

Allotment inspection on Monday after the rain was interesting. The soil was so thirsty all obvious signs of dampness had disappeared by 10 am., but the flush of weed growth suggests it has spurred growing. According to VP only 4mm fell on Sunday. Not a lot really.

My principal tasks were to earth up the potatoes again while the soil was crumbly enough after the rain to be workable  and to weed the onions. The potatoes-Pentland Javelin and Vivaldi, are leafing up well, having escaped the frost last week.  They grew well last year and both varieties produced  flavoursome tubers that kept well. They are both earlies-blight always strikes our allotments so main crops seem to be a waste of space on a small allotment.My other variety, Mayan Twilight- new to me this year- is just showing leaf.

Having finished dealing with the spuds, I hoed the onions. I have 3 varieties, and garlic and shallots as well. The onions in the pictures above are on the left Japanese autumn sown Senshyu-already bulbing up well, Hercules from sets in the middle and Dorata di Parma from seed sown in modules on the right. The Japanese onions are appreciably bigger than the others, which is to be expected, as they have been growing for a much longer time. It is interesting that the seed sown Italian variety has almost caught up with the sets I planted. I was expecting them to be a lot smaller at this stage, but they are almost as sturdy.

I had not really considered growing onions from seed until the experiments over the last 3 years demonstrated that autumn sown Japanese onions were very well worth the effort, standing the winter well and growing on as the weather warms. They will be ready for harvest in June. So far the spring sown seeds seem to be putting on a good show too and if they bulb well, I will probably repeat the experiment again next year.

Earthing up and hoeing done, I spent some time just gazing at things-I do a lot of just gazing these days. There is a terrific fruit set on the currants, red, black and white and thanks must be due to the furry visitors. Bless ‘em.

Blackcurrant Ben Tirran with pollinator, Bombus pratorum worker