SOW DWARF & CLIMBING BEANS
It doesn’t matter what type of bean you favour, just make sure you’ve sown enough of them to provide a constant summer supply. Climbing ‘Scarlet Runner’ beans are one of my favourites because they are true perennials, which means they come back year after year. The ‘Scarlet Runners’ I sowed last year at our wee bach, for example, are already flowering at the top of their climbing frame – and you can’t ask for more than a bean that does all the work for you. However, if you prefer posh French green beans, sow annual ‘Blue Lake Runner’ now, or dwarf beans such as ‘Top Crop’. I find it better to sow dwarf beans every six weeks, rather than waiting for your plants to flower again after their first main flush, as you never get as many beans the second time around. Sow beans direct, in full sun, spacing the seeds 20-30cm apart. Keep well-watered once they start to pod up as fastgrowing beans are the most tender. organic tomatoes. Because my edible garden is enclosed by a tall, dense hornbeam hedge, it’s very sheltered in summer, which is great for ripening heat-loving crops like eggplants and chillies, but not ideal for avoiding fungal diseases such as blight on tomatoes and spuds.
There are two main types of blight that attack tomatoes: early and late, and both are more prevalent during humid weather. They are two distinct species (early blight is Alternaria solani and late blight is Phytophthora infestans) but their names are confusing as it’s late blight – albeit
it arriving early! – that my plants have succumbed to.
Early blight causes leopardlike spots on the foliage and rotten spots at the bottom of the fruit. This blight can be kept at bay by improving air flow around the base of the plants by taking off the older foliage during the season, whereas late blight comes on rapidly and instantly ruins your crop. Late blight sees blackened areas on the stems, wilting foliage and fruit rotting from the stem end. In humid weather, the whole plant can wither, turn yellow and turn up its toes in less than a week.
If you regularly lose your tomatoes to blight, consider growing them in a completely different part of your garden, one that’s open to the wind.