Grow Your Own Magazine

Help!!
Been to Ryton today and came home with loads of new seeds some of which i have no idea what to do with. If i give you all the list can you add any comments on the seeds and any advice on when to sow and what care they may need? Really apreciated. Got a bit carried away with all those seeds on offer.
Managed to pick up :
Polish Climbing French Beans
Slovakian Runner beans for drying
Borlotto Lingua Dwarf
Runner bean - Churchfield black
blue sweetcorn
Red sweetcorn
kale - ragged jack
leaf beet, chard or perpetual spinach (dont know which is the correct name and this was all written on the one envelope.)

I need to plant the corn away from each other dont i?

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Come on grapes - i cant beleive that none of you can help me with these seeds.
Been waiting patiently for some answers.!!

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All right vl, kicking off with dwarf borlotti

Growing

1. Sow outdoors after the last frost for your area
2. Soak borlotti beans overnight, spread out between two damp flannels. Wait until you can see a tiny shoot sprout to show which seeds are viable (you can omit this step if you're in a hurry, but it can make a huge difference if the soil is dry)
3. Mark out planting holes 1 ft x 1 ft
4. Make planting holes, a good 2" deep (I use a dibber)
5. Drop four seeds into each planting hole
6. If soil is dry, water into each planting hole to give the beans a drink to start them off
7. Rake soil level to cover
8. When beans have come up about 4" above the soil, lay on straw mulch. This will keep the soil moist and cool so the beans won't be splashed with mud when it rains
9. Top up mulch during the season, up to 8" - the only weeding you'll need to do is the odd perennial making its way through the mulch, easily pulled out. The beans need no support.
10. You can eat whole pods when young or, when mature, for beans alone and discard pods.
11. Companions: Summer savory will repel bean beetle (and taste good in the pot). Borage, limananthes etc. will attract bees to assist with pollination.

Harvesting

1. For mature beans, wait until all the leaves have turned yellow, then harvest.
2. Snip off stems level with the ground to leave roots, with their nitrogen nodules, in the soil for the next crop
3. You can eat the beans 'fresh' now, like haricots, boiled very briefly, on their own or in soups/stuffings
4. To dry the beans for longer-term storage, hang whole plants upside down to dry, like over a washing line, somewhere dry and warm
5. When bean pods are completely crisp and dry, shell the beans out of the pods. Pick a sunny winter afternoon on the plot, so the shuckings go straight into the compost heap. Or take them home and shuck in front of Murder She Wrote. Or rope chums in over Xmas to help!

Storing

1. Store somewhere cool, dark and dry; I use paper sacks hung on hooks indoors, some people use glass or plastic jars.
2. During the period of storage, check for bean beetle. Remove any affected beans straight away.

I find home grown Borlotti take less cooking time than 'bought' beans.

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SSx
not every situation requires a big onion

Hey vl what sort of problems might you have with the beans? Do you have any names for the climbing beans, they sound interesting, climbing poles?!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

SS - four seeds per hole? Isn't that overkill, especially if you've already pregerminated them? Or do you mean put one seed at each corner of the 1ft square planting hole?

When I have limited amounts of 'special' seed, I tend to sow them in root trainers, especially pea and bean seeds. I treated myself to a couple of packs of them last year and they were great. I used them on the seeds from the Heritage seed library, as you only get ten of each kind. Recycled tetra pack juice cartons make great pea and bean pots as they'e got good depth for the roots.

And yes, I'd grow the sweetcorns well away from each other. Like a hundred yards or more from any other variety! Start them off in small pots a week before the last frost and don't plant out until all danger of frost is past. Always plant in a grid, not a line.

Ragged Jack is also known as Red Russian kale. http://permaculture.info/cgi-bin/eden?plant=1157 (yes I know that's cheating but I'm typing one handed at the mo! )

Perpetual spinach/chard is foolproof. http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalo...products_id=28

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Kris

I child-proofed my house, but they still manage to get in.

Muddy Musings - a blog

This was a tip from a bean growing chum, and the most successful method I've tried to date. It's possible, but they seem to do well growing into a mat of bushy beans - am I kidding myself to think this is intensive planting

I do share bean seeds out among the planting holes to make a complete grid at each sowing, so there are sometimes three to a hole

Worth experimenting and comparing yields ... but somehow I haven't got round to that yet. What do other grapes think?

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SSx
not every situation requires a big onion

That's really interesting - I've never heard of doing that! Methinks some experimenting is called for this year

I grow tons of beans, as we eat lots of green 'snap' beans, as well as drying them for soups and chillis. I'm definitely going to try the multiple planting thing - does it work with climbing beans too? Maybe they'd get a bit too tangled. Would be worth trying with drying only beans, so I didn't have to hunt through masses of foliage for green beans.

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Kris

I child-proofed my house, but they still manage to get in.

Muddy Musings - a blog

The planting suggestion was for dwarf borlotti beans which to be quite honest I think produce a poor crop so mass planting per station would at least produce a reasonable crop for the ground used.

With climbing beans I prefer one plant per cane. I usually have a double row across the plot and this produces more than enough beans for us. Rather than planting the beans direct at the allotment I grow mine in cells in the greenhouse first.

Really it is down to how prolific the variety is and just how many beans you want to eat fresh, frozen or dried.

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[

That's my experience too LJ. On balance, for borlotti, I prefer intensively planted dwarf beans to the pole beans, even though the latter would give higher yield. Dwarfies suit me because:

• Once they're sown and mulched, they need no further attention; I can forget about them until harvest time
• Unlike fresh dwarf beans, you don't have to bend down to harvest them one by one, just snip off each 'group' at ground level and take them off for drying. Then the whole bed is ready for autumn sown onions!
• The bushes are a handy shape for hanging to dry
• There's no pole rigging and de-tangling and de-rigging!

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SSx
not every situation requires a big onion

Leaf Beet - lovely stuff. Just sow it and forget it till you want to eat some. I get the tender inside leaves and the guinea pigs get the outside tatty ones (we're still picking it now in Jan, its only just slowed down)

Thanks everyone for the advice. I dont have a variety for the climbing poles! Thats just what it said on the packet. Does anyone know about the churchfield black runner beans? The seeds are completely black. Do the pods grow green or black?
Think i might have to try just two sweetcorn varieties this year and do the others next year as wouldnt have enough land to keep 4 varieties far enough away from each other. Think my daughter might win and it will be the red sweetcorn and my own favourite i think.

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You could try sending a message to the friendly experts at Beans and Herbs - although Churchfield Black doesn't appear on their website, they answer any and all messages within a few days. They love their beans!

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SSx
not every situation requires a big onion

Thanks SS
Ive sent an Email and will let you all know when i receive some info.

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Sorry, I can't give any advice re the growing of any of those. Just wanted to say they sound really interesting and wish you good luck with them.

Can't wait to hear if you really get red and blue sweetcorn!!!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Shirl i have a few blue sweetcorn spare if you would like to have a go. Just PM me if you want some and ill post them out to you.

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