Category Archives: Beans

Broad beans, Herbs

Broad Bean Hummus with Lemon Zest & Mint

 Broad beans tend to be regarded as somehow not quite as good as the borlotti and french beans of high Summer perhaps its because they are easy to grow but for me this simple dip transforms them into a great quick  hummus in under 10 Minutes

Ingredients

160g broad beans podded

juice 1/2 small lemon

15 mint leaves

4 tb extra virgin olive oil, plus extra

zest of small lemon

sea salt, to taste

Method

Boil or steam the beans for 3-5 minutes, until tender. Older beans may need longer cooking.

Rinse under cold water with ice cubes,  drain in a colander.

Remove outer skins  especially with older beans, best way slice one end and gently  squeeze bean out

Blitz beans, salt, lemon juice and mint until smooth in a processor or with a hand held stick blender, adding olive oil in a stream until you achieve the consistency you desire.

If you like a coarse texture you can break up the beans with a fork

chop Lemon zest into fine pieces

A good quality, mild tasting oil makes all the difference to the taste

Once smooth, add zest and taste seasoning.cover with little more oil to keep in fridge for a couple of days if you can resist it

Great with seeded crackers and cool beer

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Beans, Peas, Pre-germination

Pre Germinating Peas or Beans

Pre germinating Peas or Beans

Sometime you may find yourself with some seeds that are well out of date but you may still want to try and grow them either because they are rare, scarce or of unknown origin

When it come to Peas or beans one of the ways to get the best germination and also avoid lots of wasted compost or space on a propagating bench is to pre-germinate then before sowing

Technique

Take your seeds and in a container cover them with luck warm water and leave somewhere like the kitchen for 12 hours during which time the outside coating of the seed will soften and allow moisture to enter swelling the seed which encourages the seed to germinate.  Any that don’t discard at this point

Drain the seeds and place a piece moisture retentive cloth like that has been dampened but is not soaking wet into the bottom of a plastic container.

Place lid on the container and keep at around 75 degrees as we want to achieve quick germination and peas are affect quite a lot by temperature

Germination temperature for peas : 40 F to 85 F – Days to emergence: 9 to 13 –

Optimum around 75 F.

9 days when soil is 60 F.

13 days at 50 F.

It may take as long as 4 to 5 weeks at 40 F.

As soon as the peas show the first emerging shoot carefully pick them out of the container and place them into short root trainers pots of Multipurpose compost  roughly 2cms deep and cover with more compost.

 

 

 

 

When the peas emerge grow them on in a cold frame till around 5cms high when they can be planted out into a growing bed.

 

 

 

 

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Beans, Climbing beans, Dwarf French beans, Sweetcorn

Planting Sweetcorn with Beans

A classic technique often recommended for interplanting crops is the 3 sisters, were Corn has beans and squash planted between

This method was used by the Plains Indians in the USA and works very well , unfortunately when applied to UK conditions and varieties it doesn’t!!

I have developed a method Continue reading Planting Sweetcorn with Beans →

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Bean Wigwam, Climbing beans, Knots, pea harp, Peas, Wigwam

How to tie a Clove hitch knot

You will find a Clove hitch the most useful knot to use around the garden and perfect when constructing supports for growing climbers like Peas, Beans ,Squash, Tomatoes Melons and Cucumbers.

Pass the end of the rope around the pole. Continue over the standing end and around the pole a second time. Thread the end under itself and pull tight to form the clove hitch.

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