Green Blog
27 April 2011
Magic beanstalks: broad beans are taking over my world
On my way to market yesterday I met an old man who took my cow and gave me a handful of beans which I later threw out of the kitchen window in a fury.
OK I didn't. Less than a month ago I took my colleague Dominic's advice and planted some dried-up looking broad beans in a raised bed I'd made from an old pallet.
Another handful I dropped some into a mix of garden soil, peat-free compost and a sprinkle of organic fertiliser.
And there they sat in a motley collection of margarine tubs and yoghurt pots in the gloom of my garden shed for a couple of weeks.
I had a bad feeling about them. Whatever the opposite of green fingers is, that's what I have. So when no beans instantly appeared from soil that started to look like the Somme in winter (over-eager with the watering can) I slipped back into my comfort zone.
Then one day I get home from work to find the dried beans are bursting through their own skins. More Alien Resurrection than Brothers Grimm.
In a fit of enthusiasm I lift the pots on to the window sill. Mere days later this.
Then Easter comes around. Now they're for it, I think - I'm away for 5 days. Just enough time for them to shrivel and die, particularly given the unreasonably good weather down south.
But no. On returning I open up the shed to find what looks like a bunch of triffids at the spring sales elbowing their way towards the lighting department.
Even the ones I'd planted outside seem to have withstood the neglect.
So far so magic. I'll let you know before long whether I'm actually able to climb up the stalks and find the treasure.
Or whether they wreak their terrible revenge on my brave new world of grow your own.
Adam Bradbury, Publishing & New Media Team
© Adam Bradbury
Discuss "Magic beanstalks: broad beans are taking over my world" in our forum