The Year of a Thousand Beans

After a bit of a late start (not a bad thing incidentally, as the soil is still very cold) I have started planting!!

I feel that this year must be a bean year. I am growing 7 varieties this year and I got a bit carried away planting them today...about 200 bean plants I reckon. However none will go to waste I hope - most of the garden will be given over to them this year, friends will take some, and as a last resort I know some greedy chickens who will polish off a bean plant at the drop of a hat. The varieties I'm growing are:

• French beans 'Cobra' and 'Blue Lake'
• Runner bean 'Scarlet Emperor'
• Borlotto 'Lingua di Fuoco' and a four-year old packet of a mystery borlotto
• Dwarf French bean 'Tendergreen'
• Kidney bean 'Yin Yang' - absolutely beautiful black and white beans!

not to mention the other things I'm growing, the usual tomatoes and lettuces etc.

The garden is going to be full this year, but I have cut back on variety if not on numbers of plants, sticking to things that are better home grown - e.g. tomatoes - are easy to grow - e.g. lettuces, chillis - and things that we just love too much to not grow - beans and squashes, for example.

Even so, why have I grown so many beans, you may well ask. Well, I think there was an element of insanity in buying endless packets of beans, but it's also because they store well (dried, frozen or bottled, like Madame Georgette, our French neighbour, does), are a good source of protein in the vegetarian diet, and because they're very ornamental plants that I hope to have climbing up every available vertical space in the garden. Also they're a piece of cake to grow - I remember growing them on a piece of damp tissue paper at school when I was 8 - and they taste GOOD. I expect that by the end of the summer we'll all be sick of beans, but hopefully we'll take the time to store them, meaning that we won't feel compelled to buy Kenyan imports in the winter in order to get something, anything, green and tender.

Anyway, I'm also trying out the Asparagus Pea this year. It grows sort of ridged pods that apparently taste like Asparagus. My Grandad used to grow it, and looking through his old gardening books and allotment folders etc, we seem to have been quite similar in taste when it comes to veg varieties. So this year I am following in his footsteps and planting this strange, short, bushy green vegetable.

As far as the rest of the garden is concerned, it's well and truly springtime now! We have blackbirds nesting in the clematis, the girls are laying so many eggs we don't know what to do with them, and my currant bushes have plenty of flowers this year ^^. Also the blackthorns in the hedgerows seem to be doing well this season, which should mean plenty of sloe gin in the autumn...

As for the bees, I haven't seen them yet this year! Dad has been to check on them and feed them to get them going, but as yet we haven't carried out a full inspection. We are very unfortunate to have only one hive left now, due to the fact that every hive had litterally pounds of stores but somehow couldn't eat it (easily solved, I hope, by feeding more liquid syrup later in the autumn this year). However in some ways this is lucky, as it allows us to build up again (always exciting) and we know that these bees can stick it when others just can't (and they're our best honey producers too). Fingers crossed for lots of lovely strong swarms this May however!