Winter wind-down but beans thriving (From Blackpool Citizen)

Winter wind-down but beans thriving

11:12am Thursday 27th September 2007

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AS the weather closes in, my little urban garden is closing down bit by bit. As the air cools and the nights draw in the growth rate has dropped accordingly.

The nightly nip in the air also leaves less time for pottering about among the raised beds which, to be frank, are looking a bit sparse now.

The broccoli has long gone apart from one lone plant in a garden box which is the only one which didn't bolt.

We enjoyed eating the greens from the cabbages which were absolutely delicious and now we are waiting for them to grow bigger.

One or two are showing willing while the rest seem to be comatose - if that's a word you can apply to cabbages!

The rosso lettuce has been outstanding throughout the spring and summer and has only now decided to bolt.

I have one small deformed green pepper on one of two decimated pepper plants, so we'll leave that in for a couple of weeks or so to see if it grows any more - though I doubt it will.

The runner beans are still coming thick and fast - this has been a plant that has surprised us as it started producing beans quite late on but now won't stop.

The one thing we've found though is that they can be stringy if they're not cooked properly. The dwarf bean plant stopped producing long ago.

The barrels containing my carrots and leeks look okay but I haven't pulled any up recently - though they can be left in the ground for some time yet.

My celeriac plants and swedes are coming along and look to be large and healthy from the bits I can see poking up through the soil. I think I will leave those for a while to see how they go and then unearth them when it gets colder.

The corn plants haven't really grown much in the past few weeks so I think this weekend I will take one and see if it has matured properly.

We have some tiny tomatoes on two of the plants I potted late in the summer but I suppose I will have to take them inside for any chance of seeing them mature.

• If you have any gardening tips or are proud of your little veg patch contact me via email at wwright@theboltonnews.co.uk or phone me at 01204 537352.

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