To start off my bean crop, I chose Sugar snap peas and French beans. I was very impatient to get going with it all so instead of waiting to sow in April, I’ve jumped the gun and sown indoors instead.
After two weeks of sitting on my window sill, my sugar snap peas were ready to plant outside.
After I gently removed the shoots from the growing pots, I placed them in a trough about 5cm apart on on top of 15cm deep layer of moist potting soil. I then covered the roots with another layer of soil. I kept space in the centre of the trough for the bamboo canes which I’m going to train the peas around.
Well, after two months of growth and training, I finally have some peas emerging!
The sugarsnap peas did extremely well outside – even in the return of the cold snap we saw last month. If anything I planted far too many shoots in the same trough. Next year, I will certainly either plant less, get rid of the weaker plants or just use more planters.
The french beans were a different matter entirely. Despite using the same soil, same watering routine, and the same outdoor conditions, they simply died. The leaves began turning yellow before the stem weakened and collapsed from under itself. I’m not sure what went wrong there but I will persevere and try again next year. I have started a couple of seedlings off in my new vegetable garden at school so hopefully they will do a little better.
However, the lack of french beans did not deter me and I also p
lanted runner beans. This time, I did not germinate the seeds indoors; I sowed the seeds straight outside in a large, round plastic planter. I placed around ten seeds in a deep drill in the soil, covered them up and simply left them to it. After about a week, once that I had seen that the seeds had germinated, I placed bamboo canes around the outside of the planter and tied them up at the top to make a frame. The plants are doing great and, although there aren’t any beans growing yet, I am confident that I will see an appearance soon.
Again, I am not sure if there are too many stalks in that one pot but I am keeping an eye out for any plants that aren’t as successful and I am prepared to remove them if necessary.
Incredibly, Possibly Edible 