Broad Beans

Some thoughts on growing Broad Beans

Broad beans are not my favourite bean - that distinction belongs to the suave and sophisticated French Bean.  But they are always very welcome in late spring, one of the first of the new season's vegetables to arrive.

They follow the late summer tender French or runner beans in my rotation, and precede brassicas.

I always make 2 sowings of broad beans. The first is of a winter-hardy variety between late September and November - the earlier the better, but it depends on when the soil has been vacated by the outgoing crop. The variety Aquadulce Claudia  ticks all the boxes for me - prolific, early and able to withstand the harshest of winters. (Indeed in early December 2011, when we had several days of Arctic conditions going down to -11 degrees, my beans were still under the soil, but my neighbour's beans had already broken through and were an inch or 2 tall. Both crops survived, although his did look a bit yellow and shell-shocked for a while.) Then in mid-March I make a second sowing - this year I used Imperial Green Longpod.

Even though the 2 batches were sown 5 months apart, the spring-sown beans were not that far behind and followed on from the autumn-sown ones, even overlapping by a couple of days.

Even though the books suggest that you can grow broad beans through the summer, I have never had much success with later crops and stick to the early ones nowadays.

I sow the beans 6 inches apart in rows a foot apart, which gives me room to hoe between the rows when the plants are still small. I push them in the soil the length of my thumb, with the black stripe down.

Broad beans are incredibly versatile.  In May, when some of the growing points are first attacked by blackfly, (as they inevitably will be), I pick off all the others and cook them like spinach. in garlic butter. This is always very welcome at a time when greens are scarce and we are still in the throes of the hunger-gap. Then a week or so later, the smallest pods can be picked, cooked and served whole, like a kind of coarse mangetout.  After this I pick and pod as many as possible of the tender beans when they are young, We can never eat them quickly enough - they don't stay tender for long - so I like to freeze the surplus at this stage. Then a bit later still, when the pods are fuller, the beans develop a skin and need to be squeezed out before eating. (This is how you get them in the shops and the only experience most people have of broad beans!) Then finally we are left with the few survivors on the blackening stalks. Some of these I keep for next year's seed, and the rest can be dried - I am working on some recipes for dried broad beans (fuls mesdames) such as ful, felafels, refried beans and beanburgers which seem promising. Versatile indeed.

When the stalks have finally been stripped, I cut them off close to ground level, so the root nodules remain in the soil to yield their nitrogen to the brassicas which follow.

Apart from blackfly there are no problems to speak of - yes the leaves always go brown and blotchy, which must be some disease or other, but as it never seems to affect the harvest I just ignore it. It was pleasing to notice that on each of the shoots attacked by blackfly, there was a ladybird happily munching - a good indication of balance in the garden.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I sowed an extra bed of field beans this year, especially for drying. These were sold as a green manure, rather than food,  crop, but were indistinguishable from broad beans when growing, apart from smaller (though far more numerous) pods. They didn't taste much fresh - maybe I left them too late - but gave me several jars full of dried pulses for the winter. I sowed them in November.

Preserving     Any surplus can be stored by drying or freezing. When I freeze broad beans I blanche them for a minute first, plunge in cold water, then spread out on a tray in the freezer. When I dry them I spread them out on an oven tray and leave them for 12 hours in the oven on the very lowest setting, then store in jars.

Saving Seed    Broad bean seed is easy to save. Traditionally you just leave the beans on the vine until they go black and leathery. However if you are following on quickly with another crop, that is not possible. As I always have brassica seedlings chomping at the bit the occupy the vacated land as soon as possible, I spread the bean pods out on a tray in a sunny windowsill for a couple of weeks, until the pod has dried, then shell them and leave them on the tray for a few weeks more until they are completely dry.

It is worth trying to avoid cross pollination when you are growing more than one variety, otherwise the desired features on one variety might be lost in the next generation.  For me, the most important feature is winter-hardiness in the Aquadulce. Taste, yield  and size of the beans from Aquadulce Claudia and Imperial Green Longpod are not vastly different. The late flowers of Aquadulce were just about showing at the same time as the first  flowers of the Imperial Green Longpod and the field beans, so I decided to take my saved seed from the lowest (i.e. the earliest) pods on the overwintering beans.

 Writing this now I have just realized that the field beans may well have crossed with Imperial Green Longpod. That's annoying!  As I have already gone to the trouble of saving Imperial Green Longpod seed, I will use it next year and keep my eye open for any deterioration in size or taste.

And then came the Blight!

About a week ago,  when the weather was hot and humid and rainy, I noticed some yellow leaves on the spuds. And some green leaves with the tell-tale black circles on. Blight!!

Of my 6 varieties I am growing this year, the earlies (Accord) were just about finished. The second earlies (Vivaldi) and salad potatoes (Charlotte) were going yellow very quickly.  However, one maincrop (Sarpo Mira) was completely untouched, and two (Kifli & Cara) were only slightly affected.

My neighbours immediately cut down all their potato haulms and encouraged me to do the same.

It's a tough one.  The maincrops are only just now flowering, so the potatoes under the ground will still be quite small.  If I cut them down, they won't grow any more anyway.

So this is what I did. I cut down the Accord, Vivaldi and Charlotte. I didn't buy these for their blight resistance, although traditionally Charlotte is meant to have good resistance to tuber blight, if not on the leaves.

I will leave these under the ground for a full 3 weeks. By which time any fungal spores in the ground are meant to be inactive and the tubers safe to lift without infecting them.

The bed of Cara have a few yellowing leaves, which I have carefully picked off.  Traditionally Cara has had strong blight resistance, hence their nickname "The Allotmenteer's Friend". However in recent years new strains of blight have taken up residence in the UK. The latest, called I think Blue 13, is really nasty and I suspect a lot of our potato-resistance databases are out of date nowadays.  So whether my Cara survive or not without me chopping them down waits to be seen.

Kifli and Sarpo Mira are 2 varieties from the Sarvasi family. The story goes that in the Soviet era, this family were told to develop blight-resistant potatoes. When the Soviet Union broke up,  they came to the west with some of their most resistant spuds hidden in suitcases.

They have continued their breeding programme here, and I buy their varieties (through Thpmpson & Morgan).  Sarpo Mira is not the tastiest of spuds, and can be rather strangely shaped, but if everything else dies, at least these should survive. Kifli is a more recent variety - I have read conflicting accounts of its resistance - so now we will find out. Incidentally. for a maincrop, Kifli tastes superb, just like new potatoes.

So I have been picking off the leaves from the Cara and Kifli  and hoping for the best.

Now that the humidity has gone and the temperature is high, (Summer has finally arrived!!) I am hoping that the disease will become inactive.

Incidentally, there is conflicting advice as to what to do with the haulms. Most old sources say they should be burned. But some more recent authorities suggest they can be put on the compost heap. I have decided to compost them, though if I have any infected tubers, I will dispose of them elsewhere. I don't use that compost on the spud beds anyway.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse have been largely unaffected. (The blight-resistant varieties of tomato are far less resilient!) I did find the early stages of blight on a couple of leaves, which I carefully picked off.  After that I  kept the greenhouse door closed until the temperature soared a couple of days ago. When going into the greenhouse I made sure that I did that business before doing anything else on the allotment, to reduce the risk of bringing blight in.

I think I might have have got away with it!

Photo Journal June 29th 2012

What a difference 6 weeks makes in the allotment!  (I did take some pictures 3 weeks ago, but then went away on holiday and forgot to post them. )

 The dwarf french bean bed, with some onions guesting at the back

The ones in the middle of the bed were raised inddors and planted under cloches in mid-May. At the same time I sowed the ones at the front direct.

 This variety is called purple teepee. Lots of flowers now. Hopefully lots of beans later.

 The peas are doing well...

 The onions that Iwere sown in the spring are looking healthy.

 The shallots have done well this year - some of this year's shallots are bigger than many of last year's onions! They are starting to yellow and will soon be lifted.

 This year my onions have been superb - ok a few of them have bolted, but the rest are huge. Whether it is because of all the rain we have had this year, or whether because this year I decided to grow the alliums in well-manured land vacated by the spuds I can't say. Next year I will certainly put them in after the spuds again, and water thoroughly in dry weather.

 The 2 broad bean beds. The 2 white poles show where there ought to be a path - it's a bit of a struggle to get down there though. The autumn-sown broad beans on the left are starting to come to the end of their ife and are yellowing slightly. It's difficult to think, though, that the 2 beds were sown nearly 6 months apart.

 Here is my 5 potato field, looking healthy as anything. I have grown them on the flat, with only minimal earthing up,, each potato about 18 inches from the next in all directions, in 5 beds. I did see one where the leaves were starting to roll, so pulled that one up straight away. It might (or might not) be potato leaf roll virus, but I'm not taking any chances.

 The sweetcorn has gone in where the sprouting broccoli was 6 weeks ago. I started them off in pots and put them out at the beginning of June, and they are growing quickly now.

 The squashes and marrows look widely spaced just now, but in a few weeks I expect there to be a forest. The pots next to the plants are for watering, at least for the first few weeks. By the time the leaves cover the pots I expect them to be able to look after themselves.

 My first courgette of the year.....

 Beetroot and friends

The bed wearing hairnet is full of umbelifers, ie members of the carrot family. This is part of my  battle against the dreaded carrot fly. Unfortunately the net is a bit too tight for the parsnips.....

 Here you can see my summer cauliflower interplanted with lettuce. Unfortunately they were eaten by pigeons 3 weeks ago and are just recovering. The lettuce meanwhile seem to think that the bed belongs to them.......

My first system of trying to keep the birds off didn't work, so I am now using plastic milk cartons over bamboo sticks to support nets which are pegged down.

 

The tomatoes in the greenhouse have started to set fruit, though it will be a few weeks before they are ripe.

Chillies and sweet peppers in the greenhouse border.

 A prize bloom in the middle of all the vegetables.

The summer cabbages.

Recipe: Gado Gado

Uses: virtually any veg either fresh or from store, plus  chillies, garlic, tomatoes

I first came across this dish as street food in Indonesia 25 years ago. It is fully vegetarian, even vegan if you omit the eggs.

Basically it consists of vegetables and rice with a spicy peanut sauce. The important thing is the sauce.

Here is the version I served to couple of friends a few days ago.

The vegetables

You can use anything in season or from store.

 I used:

sprouting broccoli

onions

runner beans

butternut squash

parsnip

bean sprouts

(I used the very last of the spring’s broccoli, some of the first bulb onions from those which had bolted, the last of the salted runner beans, and parsnip and squash from the freezer – typical hungry gap fare! )

The sauce

            1 large onion

            1 tbs chopped garlic

            ½ tbs grated ginger

3 chillies (depending on size and heat of course)

3 or 4 chopped tomatoes

Some oil (preferably peanut)

I tbs tomato puree

2 or 3 tbs soy sauce

I can coconut milk

Same volume vegetable stock

Same volume peanut butter

1 tbs sugar (if the peanut butter is unsweetened)

(I used the green shoulder of bolted onions, 3 dried chillies, and a can of tomatoes, as I had run out of toms from the freezer. I tend to work by volume, so the measures of coconut milk, tomatoes, stock and peanut butter were all about the same. 

Incidentally tomatoes are so easy to freeze. You just throw them into the freezer tray as they come - they are fruit so don't need blanching. When you want to use them, just drop them into a jug of boiling water for about 30 seconds, and the skin defrosts and slides off while the body of the tomato stays frozen!)

The rice

In Indonesia the rice is steamed and cooled into cakes and then broken onto the dish.

I just use steamed rice.

Garnish

Fried tofu and/or sliced hard-boiled egg.

Method

1.     Steam all the veg except the beansprouts

2.     Sweat the onion, garlic, ginger, and chillies in the oil for about 5 minutes.

3.     Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil.

4.     Simmer and stir gently until the peanut butter has melted into the sauce – this can take some time. Leave the sauce to thicken for at least an hour.

To Serve

Mix and pile the veg onto a large serving dish. Sprinkle the bean sprouts on top. Pour over the peanut sauce and garnish with egg or tofu. (If using both, add the tofu to the veg). Serve with the steamed rice.

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My gardening books: The Vegetable & Herb Expert by Dr. D.G.Hessayon

I love and hate this book in equal measure. Yet I still find it is the first book I reach for if I want to check details about a particular vegetable.

The good points            The layout is simply unsurpassable. Each veg has its own page or two, with concise information on everything you need to know. And it is so visual.

There is a pictorial calendar with dates for sowing, planting, and harvesting. There are diagrams  showing planting distances and depths for each veg. There are diagrams of all the pests and diseases which one might encounter.  There is a table containing seed facts, such as germination time and expected life of stored seed. There is a section on soil facts, which will tell you that cauliflower, for example, need well-consolidated soil, while celeriac needs fertile moisture-retentive soil. There is even a tiny paragraph describing how each veg can be used in the kitchen. All this information is concisely presented and  gathered together, in one place, in an easy-to-access way. At the risk of repeating myself, the layout just cannot be beaten.

The bad points                        It is old-fashioned and out-of-date.  Ok, you may argue that most of what you need to know about growing vegetable is ageless.  Nevertheless, it does show its age. One of my main objections is that it is unashamedly non-organic. The first version I owned, (in those days simply “The Vegetable Expert”) was published in the late 80s and told me to sprinkle an insecticidal powder (Bromophos) in seed drills before sowing (which I did, not yet knowing any better). And still, when I looked for guidance about dealing with leek moth last autumn, I was told to spray with a contact insecticide rather than given any less poisonous advice. 

Another objection is that is designed for someone who grows in rows rather than beds.

The revised version, published in 2001, includes a section on herbs and contains other minor adjustments. The reference to Bromophos has been removed, and there is one double page on growing veg in beds. But that information is not integrated into the individual sections, and it is little more than a token.

The vegetables featured are those that were grown 25 years ago. So there is a section on salsify, which no one I know grows, while garlic, which every allotmenteer I know grows in their vegetable garden, is given the same amount of space in the herb section as such obscure entries as feverfew and melilot. (And, incidentally, it doesn’t recognize that to get decent sized bulbs you need frost, and tells you to plant in March.)

Marrows, courgettes, squash  and pumpkins are grouped together and given just a double page, where I think they really deserve 2 or 3 individual sections.

Also the varieties are out-of date. For example, the modern blight-resistant varieties of potato, such as Sarpo Mira, are not mentioned, neither are any supposedly carrot-fly resistant varieties of carrot. Many of the tomato varieties listed are hard to find nowadays, yet a modern favourite as sungold, is not mentioned.

Every time I see it in a bookshop, I check if there is a more recently revised version available, hitherto without success.

Yet for all its faults, it still deserves a place on any gardening bookshelf, simply for its superb concise pictorial layout.

You can’t rush nature!

It was exceptionally hot in the month of April in both 2010 and 2011. And that was when I started putting together an allotment  calendar, to tell me what jobs need doing when.  Unfortunately, the April of 2012 was very cold, followed by several weeks of cold wet weather in early/mid May (nature’s response to our hosepipe ban). 

I was seduced by the warm springs in the last 2 years and put my plants out too early this year, as my calendar dictated.  It was a disaster. My carrots and parsnips refused to come up. My beetroot transplants just sat there doing nothing, miserable and blue.  Brassica seedlings that I took from the conservatory to the greenhouse, were too tender to survive April frosts.  The early cabbage and cauliflower plants that I bought in to replace the casualties turned blue and just sat there in the cold wet soil, sulking.  My neighbour planted out his runner beans mid-May, as he has for the last 2 years, and is now having to re-sow.

There is a huge tree in the middle of the allotment site, and I’m very happy that I don’t have to garden where it’s effect can be felt. Kevin, a long-term allotmenteer on our site, told me something another old boy, long gone, told him about the tree many years ago. It was: “Nothing will start growing until you can see leaves on that old tree.” And he’s absolutely right.

Last year the tree started showing leaves at the end of April. This year, however, I couldn’t see any green on it until late May, a good 3 weeks later.

And suddenly everything started growing! The plants which were miserable and blue one day, started showing fresh green growth the next.  The carrots and parsnips which had been sulking under the soil until now, pushed through energetically.  And spring finally arrived!

So the lesson learned this year is: Be guided by the weather, not by the date! You can’t rush nature!

photo journal mid-May 2012

 Here are the two warriors - the survivors of the recent fox attack. The lady on the left was quite traumatised after the attack and would hardly move for a day or so. We didn't expect her to survive. But then after just 2 days, she started behaving normally and laying again, and her feathers are starting to grow back.

 This picture shows some beetroot seedlings I put out a few weeks ago.  The weather has been so cold that they haven't made much progress.  On the right are some leaf beet and ruby chard.

The compost bins made from wooden pallets. The left hand bin is in need of some repair.

 The last surviving overwintering brassicas. These late sprouting broccoli have produced several welcome pickings over the last few weeks.

 Some brassica seedlings emerging in the seedbed.

 Cabbages interplanted with lettuce. The darker-leaved lettuces in the front are Winter Gem and have overwintered from an autumn sowing.  The lettuces at the back are All the Year Round and were sown indoors in early spring. In between the rows of lettuces there are, in fact, cabbages. Because of the cold weather they are blue(!) and hard to see at the moment.

 The pea bed is doing well. The Meteor First Earlies on the right are growing strongly. There is also a row of Kelvedon Wonder Second Earlies along the left hand fence. I have already started some Hurst Greenshaft off indoors to fill the remaining space on the other side of the rows.

 The shallots in the front of this bed are doing well. It is now impossible to see which rows were put out in the autumn, which in the winter, and which in the spring.   So it seems to be just a matter of choice. I will wait before I make a final verdict, however, in case there is a difference in the quality of the final bulbs.

 The garlic bed, with a rogue raspberry plant guesting front left. I inted to establish a raspberry bed in the autumn, so we are tolerating his presence here for the time being. When the garlic is lifted in a month or so, I will lift the raspberry too and put him in a more suitable place.

 These leek-like monsters are in fact Elephant garlic.

 This bed contains the overwintering onions growing strongly. However I am worried that many of them are showing signs of bolting.

 My first early potatoes are sheltering under a blanket of fleece, as there are still frosts forecast.

 These two pictures show my ultra-early potatoes that I am growing in pots. I started them off in the greenhouse, adding compost as they grew, stopping only when I ran out of room in the pots. When I needed the space in inside, I mover them to a light but sheltered spot behind the greenhouse.  They are growing strongly now, and I expect them to start flowering soon. If ever a frost is threatened I can just cover them with fleece.

 This year I decided to build a bamboo scaffold inside the greenhouse to support the tomato plants as they grow. I have found that single canes are simply not sturdy enough.

 The tomato seedlings growing well in the greenhouse. I have a paraffin heater in case a late frost is forecast. 

 My new strawberry bed.

 The field beans are already flowering.

 

 The two broad bean beds. The bed on the left were sown in September and have been full of flowers for a couple of weeks now. The bed on the right contains February sown beans.

 I hope to get a lot of broad beans from this bed. Masses of flowers, I just need to wait to see if they all  set seed.

Feeding the Soil

There is an old adage “Feed the soil, not the plants” which makes sense to me.  Here is how I go about it.

Fertilizers            Nowadays I grow my veg adding no artificial fertilizer, and minimal amounts of natural fertilizer to the soil. My aim is to eventually add none at all. I haven’t always done it this way. I still have half a tub of Growmore in the shed that I used to sprinkle around every now and then, if I remembered, before sowing or planting. But then I read somewhere that soil which has received a lot of artificial fertilizers tends to see a diminishing earthworm population. I haven’t seen any serious research to back this up, but I don’t want to take the risk – I need my worms! (And anyway, on a point of principal, natural must be better than artificial.)

I subsequently bought a pack of Fish, Blood & Bone granules, and a tub of organic chicken manure pellets (organic because I don’t want to support battery farming in even the smallest way).  My aim is to use these only as a transitional measure, until my rotation has gone a full cycle, and each of the quarters has been enriched with manure. 

However, my soil is very light and riverbed silty sandy, so nutrients leach away more rapidly than would be the case on heavier soils. I am not sure the effects of the manure will still be felt 4 years on. So the soil at the end of the rotation may well need some kind of boost – especially the root beds for which the manure will be an ancient memory.  Hopefully I will eventually have enough compost to afford to give the roots a couple of inches before sowing or planting. I don’t yet though.

DIY Fertilizer - The clever legumes            The rotation I am using at the moment delivers 5 crops in a four-year cycle

            Potatoes – alliums – legumes – brassicas – other

The legumes occupy the soil 1 or 2 years after the potatoes, when there should still be enough residual nutrients in the soil to get them going. But legumes have the amazing knack of catching all the nitrogen they need from the air. Not only that, but they squirrel it away in their roots for the future.

This means that after the peas and beans have been harvested, I can cut the stalks off at or just below soil level, and leave the roots there. The following crop will be a brassica, which will happily use up the nitrogen released to the soil as the legume roots rot away.

Clever little legumes!

After trying this approach last year I have realized that it is doubly important to keep the pea and bean beds well weeded. If there is a mass of weed once the legumes have been harvested and the stalks cut down, it is very difficult to avoid pulling out their roots while weeding. French and runner beans, and peas are fairly easy to deal with. But the broad beans are harder, as I grow them in a block into which it is difficult to reach to weed. Maybe I should cut the stalks down twice – once leaving about 6 inches, then weed, then the final cut to soil level.

Soil Improvers            There are many different kinds of soil improvers – some free, some expensive, and some better then others. The main thing is to get as much as possible into the soil.  These are the ones I have used.

(a)            Home Compost            I compost all of my kitchen waste, except for meat or fish remains (which would attract rats).  I don’t have a lawn, but I have some neighbours who do, and I have persuaded them to give me their lawn mowings rather than pay for a brown bin. I ask only that they don’t give me the first cut of the lawn after any sprays (moss killer, etc) have been used.  I also take from them any other compostable garden waste, eg old bedding plants, autumn leaves, etc. I ask them not to put in anything thorny, such as brambles or roses, that might cut my hands.  Anything that is too woody to compost I put aside for the wood-burner.

I don’t turn my compost.  I don’t add lime, or any extra water, and only pay the slightest attention to balance of brown and green. Neither do I stack things up in piles to make a heap when ready.  Everything goes in at the time I need to dispose of it. I empty the entire teapot, stale tea as well as teabags, into it every morning. I also wash out the kitchen compost bin and empty that in too. These two actions seem to keep the compost sufficiently moist. Each time I add kitchen waste, or lawn mowings, I scrunch up some newspaper and throw it in to add balance. This laissez-faire system has always worked for me, but then with 3 bins, I don't need to be in a hurry.

I have three “dalek” compost bins, and when one is full, I leave it to mature and move on to the next. I have learnt that we need some sign to indicate which bin to use, otherwise other family members get confused and throw kitchen waste into maturing bins. After a month or 2, small red worms, called brandling worms, magically appear and colonize the bin. (I have no idea where they come from – this happens even if the bin is sitting on a concrete base!).  (My bins rest on a base of chicken wire over soil, to discourage rats, which like nothing better then to set up residence in a nice warm compost bin over the winter.)

After about a year, the bin is ready. The contents will, depressingly, have shrunk to about a third of their original size, but will be sweet-smelling, brown and crumbly. The only thing still recognizable are the fragments of eggshell, which I leave, and the inevitable bits of plastic and metal (eg bottle tops, chocolate wrappers etc), which always seem to find their way in. 

I use this compost if I need something I I hope will not have many weed seeds, such as the asparagus bed, or the seedbed. 

(b)  Leaf mold             Every autumn I collect 30 or more bin bags full of leaves.  There is an area of town I regularly drive through which has broad avenues lined with huge, majestic sycamore trees. When they shed their leaves, I fill the back of Clio (our hatchback) with 9 or 10 bags full at a time.  If I time it right, usually mid-November, the council will have swept the leaves into piles ready for me, waiting to be collected.

The traditional way of using leaves is to make leaf mold rather than composting them. The easy way to do this is to water the leaves in the bin bags, tie the top, punch a few holes all round and leave for a year or two.  Leaf mold is meant to be good to improve the texture of the soil, but does not contain many nutrients.  I have tried this in the past, but nowadays I use the leaves in a different way.

(c)  Chicken compost       Instead of making leaf mold I  throw a bag or two a week of the leaves at the feet of my hens. They get very excited about this, and scratch away for hours looking for titbits.  I also throw them any remains from spent vegetable plants, weeds, (except perennial roots or seedheads), and the bedding straw when I sweep out the chicken house.  I even throw in the stalks of old brassica plants, though after then hens have picked them clean I remove them to dry for burning. (It is possibly to mash them to smithereens with a mallet and then add to the compost, but burning works for me.)

The hens scratch and peck and pee and poo on all of this, breaking it down and mixing it up, and accelerating the composting process enormously. Gradually the soil level rises as more and more stuff get thrown in.  A bye-product of this approach (I hope) is that in this way the chickens are constantly living on a new surface underfoot. I haven’t the space at the allotment to move them to a fresh site every few months, as recommended, to avoid a build up of pests or diseases. By constantly introducing fresh organic matter for them to tread in, I aim to give them fresh ground underfoot all the time without actually having to move them.

Then every few moths I dig the chicken run down to the original soil level, and barrow the contents to one of the compost bins. (At the allotment I have four bins made of old wooden pallets, secured in place by wooden stakes through the corners.) At this stage it consists of a sodden mess in various stages of decay, with a typical chicken manure  whiff to it. However, after a few months it has changed into beautiful, brown, crumbly, compost.  I know that it is likely to contain a fair few weed seeds though, so I use it where that is not so critical. For example I recently used the chicken compost when making planting holes for this years cucurbits (cucumbers, squashes, etc)

(d)            Animal Manure            I also import manure from outside.  Contrary to popular belief there is a lot of manure around for grabs: cow farms out of town, and riding stables in town being the most likely sources. The only problem is getting the stuff from the farm or stable to the allotment.  (Mrs Spud is tolerant of Clio often containing allotment odds and ends, but even she draws the line at using it to transport sacks of stinking manure.) One year I paid someone with a pickup to collect from a nearby riding stable. Last year a friend offered his trailer and together we filled 50 bags of cow manure from a farm  and delivered them in 2 loads.

(Incidentally I would recommend keeping the manure in bags while it matures rather than emptying it into a heap.  It seems to rot down equally quickly, or at least quickly enough, and saves a lot of effort when it comes to carrying it the beds.) 

A word of warning when it comes to importing manure: there have been a few cases of manure being contaminated with a particularly persistent herbicide recently. As a result some allotmenteers have found their plots sterile, at least temporarily, after applying this tainted manure. I would hope that the cow farmer would know if his manure is dodgy and not pass it on to us. I’m not so sure that stable owners would know so much about their straw though. If in doubt I suppose it would be best to try some out for growing on a small scale first. Personally I have never bothered and not had any problems.

I use imported manure exclusively on my potato beds.

(e)            Brown Bin Compost            Nowadays most councils collect (for a fee) garden waste in brown bins. This is then taken to a central depot where it is all shredded and composted into compost, sometimes sold in garden centres as “soil improvers”.

For a while our council allowed allotmenteers to collect as much of this as they wanted from the depot for free, on production of the allotment contract.  So for a couple of years I filled Clio with bags of the stuff, a dozen or so at a time.  (Matured compost like this was much less offensive then manure.)  I probably overdid the weight though, and at times was resting on the suspension, so had to drive very carefully to get it home.

However, a couple of years ago, when money became tighter all over, they started charging. It was still quite reasonable – about £10 a ton – but unfortunately they wouldn’t let me collect my ton in 4 visits. They used a weighbridge, and I would have had to pay the same no matter how little of the ton I had managed to load on each time. Nevertheless that is still an option for the future. I wonder how Clio would fancy a trailer?

Recipe: Janssons Frestelse

Uses: potatoes and onions

This recipe is Swedish and means Jansson's Temptation!.

This is a difficult time of year for those of us who are trying to feed ourselves from the allotment.  Very little is coming ready to eat fresh, the new year's crops will not be ready until June, and yet the stored potatoes and onions are past their best. The potatoes are starting to go soft or throw up shoots. And the onions are developing green central shoots.

So this is a recipe which uses up those tired potatoes and onions.

You need, potatoes, onions, anchovies and cream.  The proportions are are up to you. I use a small tin of anchovies, and a 300ml tub of cream when I cook for 2 of us.

1.  Slice the potatoes and onions.
2. Grease and overproof dish
3. Put layers of potato, onion and anchovy in the dish. The top and bottom layers should be potato. Add pepper (the anchovy should provide enough salt) to each layer.
4. Pour over half of the cream and the anchovy liquid.
5.  Bake for half an hour at about 200 degrees C.
6. Pour over the rest of the cream and return to the oven until the potatoes are cooked through.

The potatoes are the vehicle for the flavours of the anchovy, cream and onion.  It;s nice with more cream, but very decadent.

Hens & Foxes

Keeping hens on an allotment is easy, providing you can keep the foxes out. However if a fox does get in, it will kill in a frenzy, just for the hell of it, rarely seeming to take the carcasses away to feed its young.  And if the fox does leave any hens alive, it will return a night or two later to finish the job.

When I first started keeping hens 25 years ago, we lived in a small Norfolk village, and, in my innocence, I gave the hens minimal fencing, which simply surrounded the area under some apple trees. It was intended to keep the hens in rather than any foxes out. Any mildly energetic fox would have been able to dig under or climb over in seconds.

At first the hens roosted in the trees, which was probably out of harm’s way. But after a while they started flying over the fence and into the jaws of our large dog.  So we clipped their wings, which stopped them flying (I suppose they could have flown round in circles) but also stopped them roosting in the trees, and brought them back down to fox level.

Nevertheless, in 13 years in that rural village, we didn’t see a single fox.

In my first day at our urban allotment, however, I saw my first fox walking up the path between the plots in broad daylight, bold as brass. And in the early hours one summer's morning, I saw a couple of foxes mating in the road.

This just reinforces my sense that foxes are nowadays an urban rather than a rural problem.

Since starting up with poultry again at 4 years ago, we have been visited by a fox twice. The first time a couple of years ago, he dug and pushed through a corner where the netting was not secure. He killed 2½ hens out of 4. (The ½ was still alive but with her neck chewed through and head hanging off. So we dispatched her the next morning.) To make the run more secure I improved the depth of my fence down a full 18 inches, and then laid some old metal grids under the soil horizontally around the perimeter of the fence. And 2 days later I could see scrape marks where Mr Fox had tried to dig his way in again.

This arrangement kept my hens from the foxes for more than 2 years . But just 2 days ago, he got in again. And it was my own stupid fault. I had removed one of the grids when I dug the new asparagus bed next to the chicken run, and simply forgot to put it back. The fox had dug and pushed through again, same corner. It’s as if he has been patiently watching me for 2 years and waiting for me to make a slip. 

This time he killed 4½ from 6.  (One has lost some feathers, and is limping and seems so traumatized she is almost catatonic. I’ll pop down in a minute to see if she has survived the night.)

So, how to keep the fox from the hens?

The most secure way is to let them out yourself every morning and put them to bed every evening. Foxes generally (but not always) hunt at night, and by these means you are keeping the hens out of harm’s way when foxes are about.  Most of my neighbours do it this way but I don’t. My main reason is simply that I don’t want to have to go down at dawn and dusk every day. I justify myself by saying that the hens get more hours of daylight, and therefore stay in lay for longer, if they put themselves to bed. But really, I wouldn’t keep hens if I had to go there twice a day in addition to any visits to do other allotment work.

My method relies of secure fencing! I fence the entire area in, including ceiling, so that the hens live in a kind of chicken-wire room. Foxes can both climb and dig, so the hens have to be protected from above as well as below. The fencing needs to be dug in about 18 inches all round. In addition it’s best to lay some kind of barrier around the perimeter, either inside or out – paving slabs would be ideal. The hens let themselves out at dawn and put themselves to bed at night.  I just visit once a day to top up food and water, collect eggs, and throw them some grain or greens.

After the fox got in, we piled bricks, scrunched up chicken wire, and even an old garden fork, in the corner where he had got in. This is only temporary, until I have time to reinforce the fencing. And yesterday morning there was a large hole where he had tried to dig his way in again. He failed though, I suppose that as he dug under the bricks they would fall on his head!

Recipe – Rhubarb Fool

Uses: rhubarb   (This is a recipe for those weeks in spring when you have a glut of rhubarb.)

Many fool recipes use double cream as a base. Others, older and more frugal, use custard.  I find the former too heavy and the latter too….well, I just don’t like custard. So I use greek yoghurt, and it seems to work well.

The ratio of cooked rhubarb to yoghurt is a matter of taste and availability. I aim for about equal volumes of each, but you can get away with less rhubarb. 

1.              De-string the rhubarb and chop into 1 inch lengths.

2.              Place on a pan on a low heat with as little water as you can get away with – just enough to stop the rhubarb sticking. Leave until it softens and goes mushy.

3.              Stir in sugar to taste and leave to cool, (but remember the yoghurt is a bit sour and the sweetness is going to be diluted by the extra volume of the yoghurt).

4.              When the rhubarb is cool, stir in the yoghurt and spoon into bowls or glasses. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

5.              Before serving, I like to sprinkle on some flaked almonds or desiccated coconut.

Variation: Other soft fruits will work equally well. I like gooseberry fool.