By now, after two crops, I suspect that the effects of the manure in my very light soil will be fading, so I think it wise to add some fertilizer to the soil before growing anything else.
Bed 1: Climbing French Beans interplanted with Squash The leeks will have been lifted from this bed by the end of April, and in early May it is time to erect a support system for the Climbing French Beans. I favour a structure shaped like an old-fashioned ridge tent. 8’ long bamboo canes (or other branches if I can find them), can be placed 12” apart along the edges of the bed and brought together and tied at the top, above the centre line of the bed, with other canes lying along the ridge, everything then tied together, giving stability. Each bean can be planted a few inches in from the cane so that it collides with it as it grows and, with any luck, climbs without my help.
French beans are not frost-hardy, so need to be started off under cover in early May in order to have time to develop into sturdy plantlets by the time the soil is warm enough for them to be put out in late May/early June.
The dappled shade in the middle of this bed is ideal for Winter Squashes. Experience has shown me that one plant, in the middle of the bed, is enough. I tried it with two this year, and they staged a take-over bid for the bed. arms reaching aggressively in all directions like pickpockets. I had to be very vigilant to prevent them from smothering the beans.
A planting hole needs to be prepared at the same time as the bamboo structure is erected. This year I dug out a hole one spit wide and one spit deep and filled it with compost, covering with soil and marking the spot with a bamboo cane. I planted the squash out at the same time as the French beans. Next year I will allow only the one rambling arm to reach out in each direction, and will discipline it like a truanting schoolboy if it ventures too close to the beans.
Bed 2: Peas followed by Field Beans This bed is going to start off being the Pea bed this year. They will be sown & planted successionally, and with any luck and a following wind, the ground will have been vacated by the outgoing leaf crops before the peas need the room.
In early February, at the empty end of the bed (vacated by the rocket, mizuna etc.) I will put a cloche, to warm the soil. Then, in early March, under the cloche, I will plant out some early peas. By late March I can start planting peas without cover. I aim to put out fresh plants every 3 - 4 weeks, and at the same time sow the next batch in modules. I will continue until July, using a mildew-resistant variety for the last sowing.
In theory you can sow pea seeds directly into the ground, but I find I lose more than I get that way. The old method of swilling the seeds in paraffin before planting to dissuade mice doesn’t work on my allotment – maybe peas have been grown there for so long there that generations of mice have learned, at grandmother mouse’s knee, that it is worth ignoring the smell to get at the peas!
After planting out I have learned through bitter experience to protect the seedlings against birds with either mesh or cotton & twigs. For all but the earliest peas, I will need to put pea sticks into the soil next to the seedlings for the plants to climb up.
Once the early peas have been lifted in summer, I can use the space for a catch crop, e.g. lettuces, radishes or dwarf French beans. Then in October/November, once the last of the peas have been harvested, I will sow Field Beans, which can picked the following August for drying.
Here I will digress again to explain why I am growing such an unusual crop. Field beans are usually only grown in allotments as a green manure, which means that you grow it on an empty bed to use nutrients that would otherwise be washed out by the rain, and then dig it back into the soil later, when you are ready to grow the next crop, to put the nutrients back. Personally I prefer to cover any empty beds with plastic, to prevent the nutrients leaching out in the first place. But even better is to grow a food crop on the bed. Anyway I hate digging!
Field beans are almost indistinguishable from broad beans, and are grown in this country by farmers for animal feed. Dried, they are called fuls mesdames and are popular in Arab lands, in a dish called simply, ful. I learned to love ful when I lived in the Middle East, but have found the dried beans extremely hard to find in the UK, so I have decided to grow my own.
Most of the dried beans will be used for cooking, but a few can be set aside as next year’s seed.
Bed 3: Dwarf French Beans followed by Spring-sown Broad Beans. Once the overwintering onions have been lifted by the end of June, I need to immediately plant out Dwarf French Beans which will have been started off in modules a few weeks earlier. At the same time I will sow more beans directly into the ground to follow on, and then 4 weeks later a final sowing of a late variety.
The bed will lie vacant over the winter, but in February it is time to sow more Broad Beans. As these grow later in the season, they are more prone to attack by blackfly, so it’s a good idea to pinch off the tops at the first sign of attack, or even better the day before. These tops can be eaten like spinach apparently. I have never tried; I always tend to leave it too late and find the tops black with aphids before I notice, which is not very appetizing!
The beans will be ready to harvest by the time the overwintering crop in Bed 4 are finishing, but need in any case to be out of the ground by late August, with the exception of a few plants next to the fence which can be left in the ground a bit longer until they are dry, and then stored as next year's seed.
Bed 4: Overwintering Broad Beans The onions will have been lifted from this bed by August, so this is a convenient place to sow Overwintering Broad Beans. If I sow them in September/October, they will be one of the first vegetables to be ready in May/June. They will grow happily through the winter, and even in severe winters, like last year, most of them will come through unscathed. It is worth sowing a few extras at the ends of the bed to fill any gaps though. I lost about 20% of mine last year.
In the same way as Bed 3, a few plants can be left to set seed.
Bed 5: Butter Beans & Haricot Beans, interplanted with Squash As soon as the garlic & shallots have been lifted in late June, I can plant out more beans for drying. I will use the same system as with the climbing French beans in Bed 1: two rows of canes tied together at the ridge.
On one side of the framework I want to grow Butter Beans. Ok, well I know you can’t actually do that in the UK, but there is a variety of runner bean (Czar) which produces large white seeds that I want to try as a substitute. Along the other side I will grow a Haricot Bean, I intend to try the interestingly coloured borlotti bean. And rambling around underneath, a Squash again.
Bed 6: Runner Beans Yes, I know, I don’t have 6 beds in my rotation. But once I realized that you can get away with growing runner beans in the same site for a few years, I decided to grow them along the fence behind my greenhouse, separate from the rotation. So the fence is my sixth legume bed.
I tried it for the first time this year. I did the traditional thing of digging out a trench in the spring, but instead of filling it with kitchen waste, I used old newspaper, working on the assumption that the main reason for doing this is to retain water. This was the first year for a while that the land had been used to grow anything, and there was a natural fertility there which gave me a good crop. But next year I will put some of my chicken compost on top of the newspaper.
By the autumn in Year 2, all the spent pea & bean beds are a sorry sight. They are covered in weeds as well as the remnants of the bean plants. At this stage the stems should be cut off at ground level, leaving the roots in the soil.
If the bed is not going to be used for an overwintering crop, I cover it with plastic, weeds and all. My hope is that everything will rot down over the winter, including the bean roots, which will release nitrogen to the soil. This will be welcomed by next year’s brassicas.
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