Lots of Choice

12th August 2016:

We have lots to choose from on the allotment at the moment and each week there seems to be something else ready to pick. This week it’s beans and celery.

We have picked a few runner beans over the past few weeks but now they are starting to come thick and fast. I think the plants suffered in the hot weather we had a month ago. They were flowering well but the flowers weren’t setting pods – possibly we didn’t water sufficiently. Now we will no doubt be finding neighbours and friends to help us out with the excess.

We are also producing a few French beans which we placed to grow up the sweetcorn at the allotment. I don’t think we will try this method again as you can’t see the beans low down because of the foliage and now that I am picking I keep finding enormous ones that have been missed. I do like French beans though and the ones we are growing, Blue Lake, are really delicious.

We have grown some celery plants this year as we had some space left over. We haven’t grown celery for years and in the past you had to earth up the plants to blanch them and keep the stalks light coloured. Nowadays plants are self-blanching and easier to grow but you still end up with rather a lot of dark green stems. I’m keeping the hearts to use raw and using the outer stalks for soups and also putting them in smoothies and juices. Again not sure that we will grow celery next year but it’s good to try something different each year.