Cake and Beans

It's been a long time coming...

Garden Boy's birthday cake, that is.

But finally, today, I made it. And although it wasn't quite the aesthetic masterpiece (icing a little lumpy, cake very gooey so didn't hold well when cut) it was delicious - if I do say so myself. Not that I take much credit. I can follow a recipe like the best of them!

So thank you to Nigella Lawson and her Feast cookery book for the Chocolate Honey Cake... YUM!

Today I took Spike and Dude down to the allotment. Not to do any work, you understand, but just to check up on the poor neglected thing. We have had poorly tummies etc and to be honest I find it difficult to spend much time down there with my three little darlings. There isn't much to do that they want to do (dig weeds for 3 hours, boys?) so I spend my time fretting about them not getting nettled/ thistled/ stepping on my few remaining plants/ wandering off/ messing with the newts (newts!) in the communal water-butts etc...

But we went down today to look around, and, if you ignore the weeds that are thigh high in places it is actually not too bad. In parts. For example:

my butternut squashes, grown from seeds from a supermarket squash! Getting bigger all the time! And the borage which self-seeded from one we grew last year in the home-garden, which I transplanted - successfully! Hooray!

And the bed I did last time, and have since ignored: bordered with hand-me-down chives from a generous allotmenter and 25p tomatoes and sweet peppers (all of which said they would rather be in a greenhouse - which I don't have, so they have had to suffer the indignity of being outside in the real live weather!) which are growing nicely, and really could use a prop so they don't sprawl in such a slovenly manner.

And the calendulas are flowering very prettily... and the cosmos are getting nice and big, which means that not everything is being eaten by the slugs and snails... very promising!

After that I treated the boys to a trip to Butterfly World... nice and warm on a rather unpromising day. Full of beautiful butterflies, and I would have taken more pictures, but the camera batteries were dying and the focus was suffering because of that. The meerkats were a big hit too. They are such funny little creatures...

And last but not least, here is an update from the home-garden. The Cherokee beans and the Runner beans are getting tall and lovely. The Cherokees are producing beans, and the Runners are flowering like mad, but no beans from them yet.

Cherokee bean flowers and baby beans

Young Cherokee beans

Grampy's heritage Runner Beans, in flower

The mangetout and sugar-snaps, after a glut, seem to have quit almost entirely. I think some of them got something attacking the root systems, because they have totally died, gone all brown and crispy. Some of the survivors have also been suffering from leaf-miners. So they aren't looking too good, and not surprisingly, I guess, they haven't been producing well for the past week or so. Hmm...

Done it

Well, finally Grampy's runner beans are out. 1-9, but no 7 It went mouldy and died. Sorry.

Now all I have to do is pray that they don't get eaten by slugs or snails or hit by a late frost. My back is aching from hours of digging, weeding and hefting big bags of soil improver. And the bean poles were so long (8ft!) that I had to stand on an upturned wheelbarrow to tie their tops together.

But it's done! See?

Also, all but a few potatoes are showing their first leaves. Not enough to earth up yet, but no doubt soon. Here are 'smile'

and 'Charlotte'

From here on out it's all about maintainance.

Oh, actually, must plant that butternut seedling and see what happens there. Still, that one seems ok inside still, so we'll wait til it gets a bit warmer.

Too Many Seedlings, Not Enough Space!

I love tulip time. Even more, perhaps than I love snowdrop time, crocus time and daffodil time. There is such variety in tulips, and every year there seems to be 'just one more' tulip I need to get, that I can't resist. These are this year's acquisitions. Lovely, aren't they?

But the other thing about tulip time is that, generally speaking, the weather is undeniably springlike, and getting better. The days are long and getting longer, the sun (when it's out) can be quite strong, and there are leaves everywhere. It is a gorgeous time of year.

I have been working in the garden as much as I have been able in the last two weeks (the Easter Hols). We have also had grandparents staying, and all the excitement that brings, plus a short break in the Peak District, which was totally beautiful, even if the weather wasn't at its best. So that has limited my gardening ability. But still. This is the stage I am at:

Potatoes are in, one teepee of sugar-snaps are in (next to the shallots in the raised beds) and I have managed to squeeze another teepee in on the 'flower' side of the garden because I have way too many peas and beans to fit in solely on the 'veg' side. The one on the flower side is the one that will be playing host to the sugar-snaps and mangetouts that I got courtesy of the RHS pea trials (remember? They sent me 300 of one and 250 of the other? WHO NEEDS THAT MANY SEEDS? EVER?)

Well, anyway, I finally figured out where I was going to put them ('flower' side), and figured out what I was going to do with the mounds of earth that had come out of the potato trenches (bagged it up into old compost bags) so I could put up at least one teepee on the 'veg' side. I still have another mountain of dirt to find a home for and no more bags. Considering invading the children's digging/sand area, but think it will probably mean that the sand pit will become a sand-and-dirt pit. Am I ok with that? I haven't decided. But I may not have any other option...

When I finally come to a conclusion about that I can plant out the heritage runner beans. Of the 9 I have had 7 come up. Rare #8 (of which I have the final seed since my uncle's died) is doing best of all, thank goodness. I haven't seen any sign of #7, and #1 and #6 are only now coming up. The others are about 3 inches tall or more, so needing to be planted out asap! (MUST figure out what to do with the dirt!)

I also have the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans to be planted out. I got a beautiful little package of seeds courtesy of Kath at Vegetable Heaven (she got hers from the Heritage Seed Library) last autumn and all six which I have planted came up. Very good germination rate! I have since given a few of the extras Kath sent me to the visiting grandparents, since they all live in Oklahoma, which is where the Cherokee Trail of Tears ended. It will be interesting to see how they grow out there. No doubt it will be ideal conditions for the beans!

I also have two butternut squash seedlings which are getting too big for their starter pot (an old plastic pastry tub with a flappy lid, which made a wonderful propagator pot) and, as is looking to move up in the real-estate world to a place where they can really spread out and consider having a family. I only started growing these (from seed saved from a supermarket squash) because Dude really wanted to grow pumpkins. It's easier to show him that squash and pumpkins don't really do that well here than to tell him. He doesn't believe me. (Or am I just being defeatist? Perhaps they will grow, won't be eaten by slugs and get moulded into nothing by the rain.)

Anyway, that's the state of the garden, here's the state of the family. We bought two £3 kites from a shop at an English Heritage site. Better than the usual pencils and bouncy balls, I thought, and they have been brilliant. We lengthened the tails by about twice as much again, and they have given much delight to all of us. Bargain. In this pic (you'll have to click it and make it big to see properly) you can see Pip and Dude both flying their kites.

The Beans of My Heritage

My grandparents lived in Kent, and I remember visiting them as a child and playing in the garden. It was a wonderful garden for children. It was huge - by my standards anyway, and it had lots of 'sections'. There was the lawn, flowerbed and summer-house area. Then apple and pear trees, and then the green house and vegetables, and at the very bottom, the chickens. You went from the open grassy bit, through the apple tree bit into the 'working garden' bit. There were lots of places to hide, lots of trees to climb and lots of things to eat. My Grampy grew loads of things, from broad beans (which I hated then and hate now - and yes, I have tried again recently) to rhubarb, to grapes and tomatoes and carrots. But it is his runner beans which have become my heritage.

When my grandparents died my uncle managed to rescue many treasures from the house and the garden. Grampy died at the end of summer and there were nine runner bean plants with pods on. He had been growing his from saved seed for years and years. Everyone did. Why would you go out and buy new seed when you had your own that you had grown the year before? What a waste of money. So my uncle saved the seeds from these nine plants, and has kept them going as the same nine genetic lines. He grows them all in his garden, but as numbered plants, and saves one pod from each for seed for the next year. They cross pollinate, of course, but in an attempt to keep genetic diversity high he has the nine 'bloodlines' and plants one of each every year.

And now it is my turn to join him in this project. I have been entrusted with my own seeds from these Heritage Runner Beans. But they aren't just any old heritage runners, these are MY heritage. MY inheritance. These are (allowing for genetic changes) the beans of my childhood.

It's an awesome responsibility.
I have been given instructions on growing, labelling plants and pods, on seed saving and on protecting the precious plants from slugs and small boys.
I hope it all goes well, and that I have some delicious beans to eat, and can keep this heritage going. I hope I don't screw up.

There is already variability in the seeds. Some are bigger, some are purpler. I'll have to wait and see what variability there is in the actual plants.



You may notice that there is no bean #8. That plant didn't do well last year and only produced one bean. My uncle has kept this to grow in his garden. Hopefully it will do well this year and I will have a #8 next year.

I am full of hope, and full of fear. At least I am not the only one with these beans. There are two of us trying to keep this heritage alive now. That's double last year...