You might be forgiven for thinking that I have ignored veg this year but I haven’t, only on the blog! So I think it is time for a mention. I have to confess that I have given up on carrots this year – the carrot fly has me beat – so they can attack the parsley this year instead! Fleece covers, fleece walls and garlic spray were all less that perfect and had their own problems so I decided to not bother this year.

The runner beans, which were sown a month ago, one to a cell, were planted out a week or so ago and although the leaves got a bit scorched with all the heat and sun we have had in the past week or so (sorry those in the east of England!) the growing points are doing well and are starting to twist up the twine.

The peas too are doing ok after a late sowing – the wire netting is partly for support and partly to keep the pigeons off – which it is doing well at the moment. And the broad beans are flowering well and forming small pods. And the French beans were sown last Friday and are just starting to appear. It is always best to wait till the soil is good and warm before sowing French beans or the seeds rot rather than grow. They can be sown up till late July and still produce a crop.

There are two main batches of onions and the autumn planted sets are doing very well now except that quite a lot are bolting. These plants which produce flowering stems will not make good bulbs. They can be used at this young stage but you have to cut out the flower stem which is tough and woody.

The onions from seed, sown in cells in March, are doing well now we have had some good weather and I have watered them since we need to get some good growth on them before mid summer’s day, which is only a few weeks away. After that they stop producing leaves and start to swell the bulbs – we hope. They will get another dressing of chicken pellets next week if some rain is forecast. These are in small clusters of two or three seedlings. If left they will each make a small bulb but I will pull them as scallions to thin them out too.

onions from seed, onions from sets, peas, runner beans, sowing French beans