French beans, tomatoes, turnips and kohl rabi
We are starting to get lots of vegetables from the allotment now. I’ll quickly pass over courgettes (a deluge) and move onto french beans. I’m growing four kinds and three of them were sown at the same time. I thought I’d note the order of cropping because it would be nice to pinpoint a particularly early or late variety so that picking could be spread out over a longer period. Although they freeze well I prefer them fresh.
Polish Purple Stringless cropped first on July 12th and is very prolific. They were followed by Ryder’s Top O’ The Pole which unfortunately has suffered from blackfly which seems to have reduced the crop somewhat. The third french bean Canadian is a huge pyramid of rampant foliage, leaning dangerously to one side. I’m going to have to knock up some additional support before it gets windy. Canadian has just started showing tiny pods so there will be roughly four weeks between first and last croppers. Useful to know.
My fourth bean is Dwarf french bean Negritos pictured above and like the others it is an HSL variety. The catalogue says the pods are short and green but mine have pale purple speckles as well. As these are dwarf beans I planted them in a large pot so they wouldn’t be attacked by slugs. I stood the pot next to a camellia. Now, three of the six bean plants are over 4 feet tall and are climbing up the camellia. Hmmmm! The camellia must be annoyed as it’s got self set Morning Glory plants climbing up it as well. I’m assuming I’ve got the correct beans as the seeds were small and black which I’m assuming accounts for the name. Is anyone else growing these beans? What do yours look like?
Tomatoes are now ripening, mostly Sungold but also I’ve had the first Auriga and Juliet. Please can we have more sun to hurry things along before the dreaded blight appears.
I’ve dug up my first two turnips which are Bianca Lodigiani. Amazing how an Italian name can make even a turnip seem sophisticated.
Finally, another success in the root department - Kohl Rabi Delicacy Purple. I must give credit to The Digger for this fine effort. Pretty isn’t it. Obviously the rain we keep having is good for swelling root crops even if it does make me depressed.
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I’m looking after the tomatoes Esther has in pots in her garden (as opposed to the ones Ming put on his allotment). They aren’t doing well because I went away for ten days when they needed watering. (Couldn’t be helped!) But the tomatoes which are there are still totally green, no hint yet of any colour change.
Jealousy when looking at yours!
Kohl Rabi - a green sort was delivered in my organic veg. box on Friday - with a handwritten sticker to let us know what it is.
I asked the man who grows and delivers it all why there weren’t similar stickers on the mushrooms (wonderful brown skinned ones) or tomatoes. He smiled. He’s a very nice veg. man.
Lucy
PICTURES JUST PICTURES
I must admit that kohl rabi isn’t often available in shops which is odd as they are essentially ordinary despite their appearance.
I do agree with you about the mushrooms - always buy the brown ones.
The Kohl Rabi looks great - I’ve never grown it myself but to be honest I’m a bit flumoxed how I’d cook it. Any suggestions?
Liz - You can cook it like any other root vegetable - grate it and add it raw to salads, roast it in olive oil, add to soups, slice and braise in a sauce etc. It’s quite versatile and has quite a mild taste of cabbage. In fact it looks far more exotic than it tastes
As far as cropping times for green beans goes, it’s important if they are dwarf varieties or not.
Dwarf varieties are almost always a little early, about 60 days for green beans and 90 days for dried. Dwarf varieties are also always or nearly always ‘all-at-once’ types, and after giving their harvest the plants will die.
Pole beans on the other hand crop a little later, depending on the variety usually about 70 or 80 days. As long as you pick them regularly, pole varieties will keep producing new pods over a long period. Once they produce seeds, their life-cycle is complete and they will die, so you have to keep picking them to keep this from happening.
If you want a sustained harvest, you either need to succession sow dwarf varieties, or grow enough pole varieties to get the size of harvest you want and be sure to keep picking them.
Patrick - I generally avoid dwarf beans because they always suffer from slug/snail damage. I hadn’t realised they were all at once types - this explains why they go over so quickly!
I love the look of kohl rabi - there’s something of the alien about it. However, pigeons ate mine as I forgot to net them.
I’m growing a really nice black tomato now called black berry. It has a kind of unassuming name, suggesting it’s very small, but that’s not really the case. It’s a large sized cherry, about 1″ in diameter. The plants are very prolific, and the taste is very fresh, tart and intensely tomato like. It has very little sugar. Black cherry is another similar variety, but a little sweeter and not as prolific.
I grew one this year called black sea man, that was really nice. It’s a determinate variety that’s pretty early. It was the earliest in my garden this year. It’s a little sweet, but also tart. It’s full sized.
Another black variety I like is black prince. This one is sweeter, but full sized and indeterminate. It’s also an early variety.
This is a list of all the tomatoes I’m growing this year:
http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?p=349
If you are interested in seeds from any of them, I can probably send them to you in a few months after I’ve had a chance to save some. Just send me an email after November or so.
Sorry it’s called brown berry, not black berry like I said above.
Love the photo of the toms!! Sungold will be in my garden untill I can find an heirloom var. that is as sweet.
Your beans are beautiful as well, I grew a variety called rattlesnake, they tend to curl a bit, not as nice and even as yours. Boy did they taste great though!!
Cheers!
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