The last bits of the overnight snow disappeared slowly through the morning amounting to 1.4mm in the rain gauge. It was another cold damp cloudy day as forecast. At least there’s the hope of some milder weather towards the end of the week.
Last year we tried autumn sown peas and they didn't work so this year to be different we decided to try broad beans instead. Rather than plant directly on the plot I decided to sow them in pots and look after them at home where they could be given a bit of winter protection if required.
They were sown on 15 August from a free packet of seeds. I've since decided that this might have been a little bit early but I felt I needed good strong plants to get though winter.
All the early signs were good. The beans, Bunyards Exhibition, soon germinated and grew away well as the plants in the bottom right corner of the picture above shows. This was 18 September and I left the plants in our cold frame with the intention of moving them into the greenhouse if really bad weather threatened. Of course the bad weather came and I didn't give the beans a second thought.
The beans are in a sorry state now after the cold weather. They’re the brown stalks sticking out of the 15 cell module. I don’t think I need leave them to see if they will have a second coming. They've had it and I’ll just start an early crop off in the greenhouse as usual some time towards the end of the month. Maybe I’ll have another go next year but perhaps it’s not really worth the effort to get beans a week or so earlier than we normally do especially as we still have plenty of last year’s crop in the freezer.
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They don't look too good. My allotment holds so much water that it's really late when I can sow direct, so I'm hoping that the broad beans I sowed in modules in autumn are ok until they can be planted out, otherwise it will be a very late crop of broad beans for me if I have to rely on direct sown ones.
ReplyDeleteJust the same on our plot. My early and main broad beans are all started off in pots and planted out. We normally get a good harvest so I'll stick with a tested method.
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