Shades of Purple and Green Beans

Thank you to those of you who came by last week to see my little harvest.

I have another small harvest to share, some purple and green pole beans.

I cannot remember what the green climbing beans are called, but the are Climbing Purple Cascade Beans,

 I have been growing violas in pots to garnish cakes and cupcakes. 

 I took some cutting of the lavender to make lavender sugar, but I left most of it for the bees. 

 I saw a couple of tomatoes in the greenhouse turning red, but not quite ready.

Our apple tree is doing great this year, I wonder if we will actually get to enjoy any though as we keep finding some on the ground knocked down by the breeze.

I won't be harvesting plump juice blueberries this year, the hot weather has shrivelled these and no amount of water is going to save them, even the birds aren't interested in them. 

Please do come back next week when I will show off some of my homegrown courgettes.  I  am sharing this post with  Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave over Our Happy Acres.  

Oh before I go,  I promised some of you that I would share the Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie, please see my previous blog post.  For those of you who may want to know what is American about the Pie, well the recipe is American.   Also  whether its right or wrong the movie 'American Pie' (1999) has made the fruit filled pie  synonymous with the United States of America.  Its not something we eat in Britain. 

Dwarf Variety of Beans

I picked a generous handful of beans for our meal tonight. These are hestia runner beans; purple Queen french beans; and speedy french green beans. All are dwarf varieties and early producing.
They all produce lovely flowers, purple, red and white. All of which I think should really be grown in pots, not direct in the ground, as the beans get slathered with soil and gushy mud when it rains.

The only one which has been a bit of a hit and miss, are the hestia runner beans – as you can see, instead of being flat, it has little humps like a camel. Tasted fine though.

Last seasons planting

It’s that time of year that I begin looking backwards and forward – to last seasons planting and crops which didn’t do so well; to the coming year and the hope that we will overcome whatever the weather throws at us, and still have a healthy return for our efforts.

Despite the problems with the weather last year, like many gardeners we managed to produce some fabulous specimens from our plot. Please do take a look.

Turnip purple top milan
Rainbow swiss chard - good in tarts and quiches

Tomato san manzano. Good for pizzas and paninis.

Rainbow carrots - no carrot fly. Yay.

Broad beans, calabrese, nint, courgette ronda di nizza, tri-colour and goldie.
yellow french beans neckar gold
Climbing green beans. I also grew purple climbing french beans blauhilde. Sorry I don't seem to have photos of them. On cooking the purple beans turned green. Tasted fine.

I have quite a lot of seeds left over from last years purchase, but this has not stopped me from flicking through the Organic Gardening catalogue where I order most of my seeds.

MMmm now what else would I like to grow...