Days of sowing and growing peas and beans

There's nothing like picking fresh peas and beans from my garden or allotment. Popping a perfect pea into my mouth or crunching into a mange tout pea which you've grown is such a summer pleasure.

Yet last year I hardly grew any. My allotment lay unloved and my garden was neglected too, as most of my free time seemed to be spent working or in hospitals visiting my husband or looking after him in between hospital stays.

That's why this year; priorities when it came to sowing seeds, after tomatoes, were peas and beans.

This year, I got my order in early with the Real Seed Catalogue, I've been buying from Real Seeds in Wales for quite a long time off and on. To be fair, you don't need to place an annual order with them as you can save your own seeds from their heirloom and heritage vegetables.. 

This year though, I bought these.....

There hasn't been an inch of space on the dining room table since the beginning of March when I started off the tomatoes

I know you can grown peas and beans straight into the ground, but living in the middle of the countryside, I know from experience that  sowing into trays indoors gets far better results.

One of my long standing favourite pea is the rare yellow golden sweet yellow mange- tout pea . These peas grow tall and I've always grown them up a wigwam of canes, both on the allotment and in the courtyard facing my kitchen window. Their pale yellow pods almost become translucent in the direct sun, and they really are a talking point when people see them, both as they're being grown and  on the plate!

So, a very much tried,tested and loved variety of pea, and the first sowing is already growing in situ in the courtyard.

I've also ordered a semi dwarf pea called Rosakrone for the first time. It's always nice to try something new don't you think?

This is an unusual, very rare heirloom variety from Sweden. Apparently the red/pink flowers are very pretty, reaching around five feet in height, but I'm afraid if you want to buy some this year , you're too late - they're all sold out.

I shall try to save some seed for next year....

Onto beans, and broad beans are a favourite to sow early. I have tried sowing these in Autumn and overwintering them but it's such a hit and miss affair, I now wait. I sowed this first lot in early March and they're now in the garden growing very strongly. They're from Real Seeds again and they're called Aquadulce Longpod ...another  variety I haven't grown before. They're a dwarf variety, about three foot tall. I've planted them  in a small area just  behind the old privy in the garden, which earlier in  the week was a mass of nettles. I've dug and dug them out, and added some peat free compost, so am hoping for a good crop.

Of course it's too early to sow runner beans yet, but I'm looking forward to trying "The Czar"this year for the first time. You can either pick them as runner beans or can leave some to produce white beans for drying. I'm going to try them both ways. I couldn't resist opening the packet to have a sneaky peak at the beans....they're beautifully smooth and I do love a tasty, fat butterbean.

 As for climbing beans, I've still got about fifteen Mr Fothergill's "Cobra beans left from last year , which always do well so I will sow them at the end of this month.

I have already sown a tray of "Aquilon"dwarf french beans...a new variety to me from France.
On 1st April, I thought I would pop some in to see how long they take to germinate. They've absolutely romped away and will have  to go in the cold frame soon. There's plenty more to sow too.

To say I'm really pleased with the germination rate of all these varieties of peas and beans is an understatement  - so far, it's a whopping hundred per cent.

My mouth is already watering at the thought of all the broad bean frittatas, pea risottos, vats of french beans simmering in olive oil and tomatoes a la greque, and those first precious boilings of runner beans to come.

Now all I need to do is to first go and sort out the allotment ....