Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi all

Being new to all this I may ask some simple/stupid questions from time to time so please bear with me and humour me with a simple answer.

I had sown some Broad Beans ( Sutton ) in the autumn that were doing really well under cloches. I lost about half in the storms when the cloches decided to try paragliding and the slugs decided they were in need of food. I now have a greenhouse on the plot, thanks to a kind freecycler, and am wondering if i`m ok in planting up some replacements in pots in the greenhouse to plant out when it warms up a bit. I`m on the South Coast if that helps. No snow or Ice in the last few days when the rest of the country seems to be on shut down.

Thanks in advance

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Ozzieboy,

Raised on a farm, Live in a Town

Can`t get enough of my Lottie

Peace and Quiet with Countryside sounds

You can certainly sow replacements in pots Ozzie. They may not catch up with the ones already in the ground though.

I usually start my early sowings of beans and peas in pots. Germination is better and you can cosset them until they are big enough to stand up for themselves.

OZZIE
Dont panic you can start sowing sutton straight in the ground under a cloche, growing beans and peas overwinter can be an hit or miss game if everything goes well and the weather is with you you end up with the first crop on the lottie and everybody thinks your an expert if the weather is really bad and your sowings are destroyed you have lost a few seeds and the crop will be a bit later, I am just down the coast from you in Dorset and think how lucky we are that growing season is about a month ahead of people in the midlands.

I am now a sprouter yipee

Hi Ozzieboy and welcome to the vine. Hoping that I might catch a broad bean expert here so sorry for borrowing your thread. I have some Sutton broad beans which I planted last autumn. They are in a pot at the back of my house. they are a foot high and have had flowers on for ages - do they need insects to pollinate them or can I try doing it by hand? Never grown broad beans before as I hate them but OH asked me to try them - all the ones I tried last summer died and this pot were a last ditch attempt.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Just to add to the questions.... if i sow some broad beans in pots (my newly made newspaper ones!) how many should i sow to each pot?

I didn't get any in the gound in the autumn so they'll all be spring sown/planted. As soon as the weather cheers up a bit (and my plot is less wet) i'll get an outdoor sowing going too - any idea what temp the soil needs to be at for germination?

Sorry to jump on your thread Ozzie!

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There's vegetable growing in the family, but I must be adopted
Happy Gardening!

Shirl, I used to hate broad beans too, until I Grew Me Own. Pick them very young and eat raw in salad. Or if you like Hoummous, make it out of broad beans instead of chick peas. Yum.

Protea,
the back of the pack usually tells you the temp required for germination You can sow one seed to a pot or 2 to a pot and pinch out the weaker of the seeds when germinated.

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I didn't like broad beans until I grew my own, either. Now I love them! Pick them young and they are GORGEOUS. Last year, I grew them in succession- I grew some in pots in the Autumn then planted them out early spring. THey were attacked by the frost, but mainly recovered. Then I sowed some next to the already growing beans in about March/April, then finally another line at the end of April. So we had beans throughout much of the summer. Yum!

Try them lightly steamed, with a little spring onion, parsley and olive oil. (dribble).

OZ
Been up the plot today and my Suttons are very sad, the plot next door has a loverly crop of Aquadulce looks like I will try them next year horses for courses.

I have been lucky so far with mine planted them in October coming on very
well now . To be honest only put them in to fix some nitrogen into the soil
but they are doing very well.

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The force is strong in this one!

My broad beans planted out before christmas ( see a previous posting by me)
Are still going well and seem to have survived last weeks "bad" weather.
Some are now nearly 12" tall And may require tying up some time this week.

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

Ok, you clever grapes - what should I do here?

I sowed some broad beans at the Hill under fleece 20 Jan which will be 4wks ago this weekend. I know that we had the snow last week (for 2 days) and we've had some sharpish frosts in that time, but there's not a glimpse of them, as yet.

Should I give up on this lot and sow some more this weekend, or have more patience?

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Hazel
www.hazelandjanesallotment.blogspot.com
update Sat 15/11/2008......there's gold in them thar...compost bins!......

I'd have a dig around if I were you and see if they're still in the ground. Might've been eaten or rotted? Mine have germinated but are being nibbled by slugs - I'm resisting using the blue pellets for now....

I would do as 2 sheds suggests. I sowed peppers in pots and after 21 days threw out the pots that had no sign of life. They were sown 3 to a pot and now 3 weeks after chucking out the pots some are just beginning to germinate in the other pots. Patience is a virtue

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Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet