This is the time to start thinking of future veg crop. In this case it is beans.

I don’t grow the traditional runner beans but any kind of climbing beans. After the few years on the allotment I’ve got my favourites. Most of my seeds are from one company – Thompson&Morgan. Occasionally I have some seeds from D.T.Brown but recently I started to save some of my own.

When we went to Paris a few years ago I found a little deli where they sold all kind of dried herbs, spices and some large white beans. I decided to buy just 100g with the view to try and grow them. They were amazing, grew like the bean in Jack and the beanstalk and when the pods were ripe I shelled them, dried and then stored them in airtight jars. Delicious in soups or stews. They’re called Spagna Bianco shelling bean, again from D.T.Brown.

Other beans from them are Goldfield, Golden Gate or Cobra.

All the other varieties are from T&M, like Blauhilde(round long dark purple pods), Goldfield (bright yellow flat stringless pods) and Selma Zebra, from their Heritage collection, the pods are purple speckled and striped.

Today was another nice day for a bit of work on the allotment. Even though we had some frost in the night I was able to work – the soil just needed to be turned over, ready to build the bean structure. Using my new azada I made a wide trench where I burried a lot of leaf mold and some compost from the bins. Then I pulled the soil over and constructed the poles into something sturdy.

On another little square of land is another construction, much smaller this time and also an obelisk. There will be a few more structures in different areas of the allotment, as and when the soil is workable and also when I dig out the remaining parsnips and leeks.