Coles Dwarf Broad Beans from last years harvest.

We have just come in from spending a lovely couple of hours in the Kitchen Garden this morning. The sun was warm enough to wear a 3/4 sleeve t-shirt and sit on the garden bench with our faces towards the sun and feel the warmth on our skin. There are two donkeys that live close by and it is always such a treat to hear them when we are outside. Honeybee the duck pottered about, she is very happy that we are half way through taking down a garden fence and the broccoli that she has been eyeing off is now in reach!  It’s Honeybee, she needs diversity in her diet, I figure that a couple of broccoli leaves is good payment for the slugs, snails and pest that she’ll clean up while she is amongst the broccoli plants.

Lil made the comment that it felt like a Spring breeze and she was right, it definitely was!

Gardening Jobs.

In one of the cold frames we cleared out some micro lettuce that was past its best and have planted micro spinach in its place.

Broad Beans.

The broad beans we planted a couple of weeks ago are about 7cm high, big enough for us to now realise that we can fit  another row in between them and the edge of the raised garden bed. A succession planting of broad beans is always welcome. This freshly planted row of broad beans is intended for harvesting early, some lovely tender shoots and leaves to add to salads or chop up finely and sprinkle on meals. *We let the plants grow to 15-20cm then start harvesting the shoots. After a few weeks of harvesting the broad bean plants this way we’ll leave the plants to mature, flower, and form pods, harvesting the beans when the pods are smaller, broad beans are so fresh and sweet tasting when they don’t grow so big in the pod and get those white thick cases around the bean that either need removing or are bitter to taste.

This will be the 3rd year we will have grown broad beans this way. Harvesting both the shoots, smaller leaves and then the actual broad beans, the yield is larger, it’s a good opportunity to get more greens on the plate especially early in the season when there aren’t big harvests yet.

It all adds up by doing a little each day in the garden as well as my daily goal of picking a bucket of greens, weeds & herbs for the hens. Hope you are able to spend some time outside today.

Sending Light and Love,

Jude x