Legumes

My first pea harvest of the year! Only a tiny quantity, I'm afraid (from the few plants that survived from my first sowing), but nonetheless welcome.

You just can't buy peas like this. Anything you buy in the shops is likely to be several days old already, so probably pretty starchy, whereas home-grown peas cooked (or eaten raw) just a few hours after picking are sweet and delicious. This first little batch was mixed with some shop-bought green beans, since it was not a viable quantity on its own.

In fact the little bowl of peas looked so small that I had to resort to photo-editing tricks to make them look more impressive...

Some of the Broad Beans are nearly ready too. Perhaps another few days before I can harvest the first pods. I'm already plotting how to eat them. I reckon it might be as part of a big vegetable medley. This coming weekend I might lift the first of my new potatoes, and I could put them together with peas, broad beans, broccoli and even maybe a cabbage. Of course we are meat-eaters too, so the meal will probably involve a roast chicken and some of Jane's famous gravy (plus no doubt a bottle of chilled tangy Sauvignon Blanc from "our own" [Wineshare] vineyard...) 

In that picture above you can see the way in which I have supported the broad beans - with a line of soft jute string each side of the plants, attached to a stout post at each end of the row. There are three such pairs of strings, at different heights.

Meanwhile, the climbing beans are finally beginning to motor. The first one has reached the cross-bar at the top of its supports. Unsurprisingly the winner of this particular race was a Runner bean!

When the beans get to this stage, I pinch out the growing tip to encourage the plant to put out sideshoots, and to prevent the formation of too much growth at the top of the supports, which would make things unstable.

Further down the plants, the first flowers are beginning to form.   Pods soon, I hope. I normally get the first Runners in Mid-to Late-July.

Last weekend we were at Lara's house for her Birthday party. Of course, she and I discussed the state of her garden, including her beans... This pot is planted with "spares" from my garden, so they are not so tall yet.