Saturday wasn’t too bad by recent standards but after overnight rain Sunday turned into another windy and disappointing day to end the month.
Saturday was a day of erecting supports on the plot for our sweet peas, runner beans and climbing french beans. Our sweet peas will be supported using the hazel poles cut down in winter. These have been used to support our early peas and mangetout too.
It’s made quite a dent in our supply of hazel poles but I think we’ve enough for another couple of rows of peas. The hazel cutting aren't long enough to use as supports for our runner beans or climbing French beans so we use bamboo canes to support these. This year we’re reducing the number of runner beans and incorporating more climbing French beans.
Normally our dwarf French beans come under attack from slugs. Last year we tried Cobra (recommended by Mark’s Veg Plot) as a climbing French bean with excellent results so this year we’ve decided to try our luck with three different varieties Cobra, Corona D'Oro, and Cosse Violette. It does mean a few extra supports and some extra bamboo canes will be required but our crop will only take up the same amount of ground as the runner beans did last year.
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It`s all looking good to me I wish I had a supply of hazel poles and twigs for my peas and runner beans bamboo canes are not as good
ReplyDeleteIt's much less hassle to go along to the garden centre to buy 20 canes than spend 2 years growing them, sawing them down, and cutting them into to pea sticks etc. They do seem to do a good job though as well as looking better than canes.
DeleteI have two Hazel bushes. I coppice them every year for my bean poles..the tops trimmed off for pea sticks..it is no trouble at all !
DeleteI use loppers to easily take my beanpoles down with .If you are having to saw them, then you,ve let them get too thick . It depends on what you want to use them for . But I find it very useful to have Hazel , for Fencing , Runner bean poles or pea sticks .....and some years we get a great harvest of Hazelnuts too ! FREE :)
I'm envious of your robust hazel sticks and I'd like tall ones like Monty Don has on Gardeners World. Last summer (? Aug) we had an official mini-hurricane swirl across the allotments and as the runner beans were in full leaf, the bamboo teepee took the full force and snapped clean in half. An additional external teepee was engineered, but the snapped off top was very heavy to support and they grew on at a tower of Pisa angle.
ReplyDeleteOur runner beans took on a bit of a lean last year after some windy weather. I've some sturdy hazel sticks to use but they only have twiggy material at the top. I'm sure I'll find a use for them.
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