Good news, and more good news

Contrary to my previous post, I saw a ladybird in the garden yesterday.  I went to get my camera for a quick shot, but the little blighter had vanished by the time I returned, so you will have to be satisfied with a picture of one of the flowers on my remaining courgette (’tis a miracle I tells ye) and the lovely glowing flowers on one of my beans (var. Blauhilde).

Flower on the Blauhilde Bean Plant  Courgette Flower

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Proud parent announces arrival of beans.

A few weeks ago I planted some courgette, bean and sweetcorn seeds. The courgettes, as expected, took about a week to start to grow in the heated propagator and four out of the six have been sat outside this week in the ‘mini-greenhouse’ that we have outside. The beans and sweetcorn were put into root trainers and therefore were not in a heated propagator (although they were next to the radiator in the garage). These have taken a little longer, but I am not the proud parent of a number of healthy looking beans and sweetcorn. I have tried two varieties of French beans this year, Hildora, a dwarf variety with a yellow pod that I tried last year, but which fed only the slugs, and Blauhilde, a purple podded variety. All of the Blauhilde seeds appear to be growing, and all but two of the Hildoras have made the effort. (Seven out of eight of the sweetcorn minipop are also growing.) I am so pleased by the progress of my beans that I took a photograph of them relaxing in the Spring sunshine yesterday.

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