Beans, Beans, Good for Your Heart..

An overcast but very muggy evening, we decided to go to the allotment for a couple of hours. Invested in a fancy new fork on the way (the last one snapped in two!) and Malcolm spent his time digging more of the top bed over, next to the shed. I concentrated on watering, and more planting.

The broad beans were looking a bit happier on 2 of the rows (starting to grow upwards rather than in weird 'S' shapes and loops), but the third row did not seem so good. So I moved any that looked reasonably healthy and replanted them among the other 2 rows. I replaced the third row of beans with chilli plants (surplus ones not being used at home - 6 Ring of Fire & 2 Super Chilli). I also reclaimed a short piece of 'path' to set up a small, four-post wigwam with cucumber plants at 3 of it's post bases (2 Marketmore, 1 Crystal Lemon). Down at the tin-surrounded compost heap, the existing pumpkin plants were joined by a marrow plant and a mystery chilli plant.

Overall, things seem to be growing well. The runner and climbing beans have got a little taller, the chard are standing more upright, the pumpkins are looking healthy despite a few nibbled leaves, and the potatoes don't look far off flowering. Only the mangetout peas and rocket plants are looking a bit sad, but there's still a chance they might pick up.

Back at home, the courgette plants are all big and healthy looking, and I picked our first 4 courgettes of the year! Lots of aphids are appearing on the chilli plants, and no sign of the hoverfly larvae that did such a good job of eating them all last year. So in addition to giving all the plants a good spray with mild washing up liquid solution, I came back from the garden centre with a selection of beautiful hoverfly-attracting flowers, and a plan to put them by the greenhouse door to try and lure a few in.