Beans & Mangetout

Runners by greenhouse, French beans nearest camera

I set up the first two wigwams this morning and planted out the 11 beans that have taken. 5 Purple Cascade French beans and 6 runner beans (maybe Red Rum but can't be sure).

I've planted an Iceberg lettuce inside each wigwam. I saw this in an old gardening book with lettuce planted inside rows of bean canes. Beans put nitrogen into the soil, lettuces take it out, so the two should work together. Also, having the lettuce inside helps cover some of the ground and helps to keep weeds down. Well, that's the theory.

It's a bit disappointing that we've had poor results from the beans so far. We sowed about 56 beans, always two to a pot, but only 11 have sprouted. I've lost the seed packets now so can't sow any more. I know I put them somewhere safe ..... I'll pick some more seeds up soon, just in case. I'll need more anyway so I can grow beans up the sweetcorn, if the sweetcorn actually grows.

We've had really poor results from peas this year too - we must have sown over 200 in the greenhouse, but barely a dozen sprouted and all died pretty quickly. We tried several varieties but no real luck. The mice scoffed some of the early sowings, and the rest just didn't take.

Mangetout between beans and Winter Gem lettuce

Mangetout has grown well though. We sowed 24 of them in cardboard pots and about 21 of them sprouted. The poor weather meant we couldn't prepare the ground and plant out, so they stayed in the greenhouse much longer than we wanted. They had all put on good growth, some reaching 8 inches, but had turned very pale, almost white. Hopefully they'll take to the open ground - they seem fairly strong, even though they're pale. I'm not sure how high they'll grow, so might need to increase the height of the netting later.