Time to sow. I run a children’s gardening website, but strangely enough I rarely get around to writing a blog post about the sowing and growing process. Absurd really as it is the essence of gardening. As a family we grow quite a few vegetables though my son is not always involved in planting every vegetable. He dips in and out as he chooses. We have had garlic in the plot since last autumn. He did help with planting those bulbs as he likes eating garlic. The first rows of ruby chard, carrots and beetroot have all been sown direct into the ground. We still have Jerusalem artichokes in the ground ready for harvesting.
This weekend we took advantage of the sunny weather and sowed green beans outside in a fantastically warm and sunny garden. Much more fun than doing them inside the house as usually happens. Both green beans and runner beans are always an easy vegetable to sow with children. The seeds really are bean sized easy for little fingers to pop them into a pot of soil. They are also reliable germinators and you can usually see them pop their heads above the soil within one to two weeks. Not too long for a child to wait. Remember those experiments you undertook at school with a piece of blotting paper or kitchen roll in a jar with a bean. The roots spreading downwards and the stem sprouting upwards like the bean from Jack and the Beanstalk. They really do grow at a triffid-like pace.
I sorted out pots, seed compost and the beans and then left my son to it. They are really going to be his beans this year.
Not sure I would have watered quite so heavily. Again small seeds would have been washed away, but the sturdy bean seeds held their own.
Now I am going to wind backwards and show you a photograph from last year. Then our seeds came from a seed swap and although they were labelled dwarf green beans there were n0 other instructions on the seed packet. They grew beautifully from seed and the idea was to make a bean wigwam. We planted them in a very open wigwam shape, but alas our project was not to succeed. You may have guessed why. The clue is in the name dwarf. At the time of planting I did wonder if the term dwarf referred to the size of the bean or the size of the plant. Our beans never grew any higher than 18 inches high, so no bean wigwam for us. My son and I learnt a lesson together though and the beans did taste delicious.
I am linking this post up with Countrykids @Coombemill please pop over and see what others have been up to outdoors this week.
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