Cooking with runner bean beans

Howdy all, bit late but, happy 2016!

Life at the allotment has been quiet over the winter. Beside monitoring the red onions and garlic, which are growing well, there has been little for us to do. But with the days lengthening it's time to start getting back on the land.

The manure has been rotting into the ground, so that can be dug in soon, and there is some weeding to do to prepare the other beds.

One of the first jobs we need to do is prune and stake up the apple tree. There are a lot of low laying branches where we lost a lot of fruit last year so we need to see what we can do to straighten the little tree up a bit.

Job 2: Herb patch. Some of them have gone mad, the chamomile has spread to cover half the bed, the curry plant is more of a bush and there are a lot of weeds to get rid off.

Job 3: Potatoes can start to be planted out next month so we will need to get our seeding potatoes soon to chit and then plant out once there will be no more frost. I once overheard an old gent say that you should always get your potatoes in before Good Friday. So that's the plan.

Job 3: We need to plan what we want to grow this year and get the cold frame ready for seedlings.


The jobs will be endless so I will leave it there for now and update you with progress once we get going. We just need a dry weekend.


On a side note, we had a ridiculous amount of runner beans last year and we couldn't eat them all. So, the ones that grew too big we popped all of the beans out of their pods and froze them. You can see from my last post they are pretty pink beans. Well, we got them out this week and added them to a stew and they were damn tasty.

Runner beans

As most people tend to be we have been inundated with runner beans. They always end up growing to big and therefore tough and stringy to eat. So we've decided to pop all the beans out of their pods which will then be added to stews and chilies.
The colour of them is amazing...

BBQ lunch at the allotment

A sunny Sunday calls for a BBQ. We had a nice healthy fish lunch cooked on the BBQ at the allotment. We did our weeding duties, of course, while the coals heated up.

Here is the view of the allotment while we ate and an update on progress: The corn is very nearly ready for picking, the butternut squash are getting bigger, pumpkins are looking good, the wild flower bed looks delightful and today's picks included loads of runner beans, shallots and a big courgette.

Herb garden completed at last

I had the afternoon off work so today I finished off the herb garden at last. Weeded and edging put in, it looks really neat and tidy now and the plants are all doing well.

The butternut squash are getting bigger. I'm looking forward to them being ready to pick.

Today's harvest consisted of four big courgettes, you could class two as marrows probably, some runner beans and some French beans.

Little bean, big bean

After a slow start because I thrust them out into the cold without warning, the runner beans are covered in pretty red flowers now and sprouting little beans. I was excited when I saw them. Then I got really excited when I found a massive bean lurking in the undergrowth.