It's been a long time and you would be forgiven for thinking I had abandoned my blog - or even my plot. I can assure you the latter is not the case. With all the events, good and bad, of the last year something had to give and it turned out to be the blog. Another consideration is that I have always blogged from my laptop at home. My smartphone is so much more transportable and fine for accessing information wherever you are but not so handy for generating considered content.
Without further ado here goes.
Maincrop Rooster Harvest
The first picture shows the potato crop in all its verdant glory on 22nd July. I had already dug up my first earlies but these are 2nd Early Charlotte, Maincrops Rooster and Pink Fir Apple. All cropped heavily with larger tubers. This was a big surprise because the Edinburgh spring was so dry and I did not water at all. When the rain arrived it was enough to bulk up the crop. Special mention goes to Rooster which in the previous year had been a disappointment as the tubers failed to reach baking potato size. This year we have baked potatoes on a regular basis and plenty more in store. The apples that appear in this shot also remind me what a fantastic year it has been for them too. This tree was bought as a 'ballerina' but not pruned as such since planted at the plot. Elsewhere on the allotment site the James Grieve really had a mast year. I have bought a dehydrator and have been drying apple rings for weeks now but still have plenty more wrapped in newspaper in boxes and bags!
Now if the potatoes performed better than 2024 then the carrots (which failed for me that year ) restored my confidence in 2025. I sowed more than was reasonable to compensate this year and doubled up with a late sowing where the new potatoes were grown more in hope than in expectation. Guess what: It is feast not famine.
Carrots Late
Parsnip and Carrots
I have been going big on climbing beans in recent years and set up three wigwams again this year. In addition to Runners I grew Berlotti beans and Greek Gigantes for drying. I will be scaling up the production of these next year as we use all we can grow and surprisingly home grown dried beans are actually tastier and better in texture than the shop bought which one suspects might have been harvested years and years ago.
Beans X3
Another late season sowing that came up trumps was the mangetout Oregon Sugar Pod. Not sown until July these came up trumps in September. Others have hailed this variety as a surefire success and I agree it is a winner.
Oregon Sugar Pod
Another banker on the plot in recent years has been Winter Squash. They need room as they ramble promiscuously but if you hem them in they will clamber upwards. Buttercup, Uchichi Kuri, Crown Prince are all winners. Six plants, a dozen fruit, is more than enough for us particularly as the need shelter from frost and rain in order to last throughout the winter.
Winter Squashes
One final curio for 2025: The plant below is Blue Fenugreek which I have photographed in flower as this is the only blue bit of it! Native to the hills and cuisines of the Caucasus you will need to grow this if you want that authentic flavour. I can confirm it grows very happily in the Edinburgh climate!
This year I have had a bit of a go at climbing beans. I always grow runner beans. Barlotti beans have become a fixture too, grown for drying in the pod and storing until needed in the following 12 months.
Two novelties this year have been Greek Giant Soup Beans (or just Greek Gigantes beans) and Cherokee Trail of Tears. The Greek beans are white butter beans and traditionally used in a baked bean dish called Gigantes Plaki. The pods are shorter and wider than runner beans and seemed to be vary widely in the number of beans per pod. Despite my early fears about poor yield they delivered a good crop. The taste and texture were ample reward for the effort and we recently enjoyed our first (of many) Plakis so much that we have committed to grow them again, using our home saved seeds.
Cherokee Trail of Tears will have to wait for another post because they haven't been podded yet
With the cold wind blowing it is time to enjoy some of the summer's stored treats: Sweet Dumplings squash. One of these is just the right size for a person...
...once stuffed and baked.
The kitchen pulley is serving its purpose as a drier of beans. These net bags are suitably positioned so that if you don't watch out you bump into them on entering and leaving. This, together with the occasional rummage ensures good air circulation. As the Barlotti bean pods dry they start shedding beans - a sure sign that they are ready for podding!
It's that time of year again. The beans are mature but not properly dried out. I use a couple of string shopping bags and suspend them from the clothes airer/pulley in the kitchen. Everyone bumps their heads as they pass by and curses them, but at least in doing so they are ensuring good air circulation...
Borlotti Lingua di Fuoco
...until the beans start falling out of the dried pods and they are ready to be hulled.
Tongues of Fire - also known as Cranberry Beans
The ones on the left are the earlier drier pods.
That's the whole crop - one wigwam's worth. After drying they will store indefinitely (well nearly) and I will be able to use the same system to dry the Canadian Wonder beans.
The bean pods have been hanging around in the kitchen for a few weeks in their string bags. It is the ideal place because they keep getting bumped (either on purpose or accidentally) as people pass underneath. This ensures the air circulates between the pods. As the pods dry out they straighten out and start falling through the gaps in the string bag. Any fallen pods get returned to the top of the pile. Once they start to open up of their own accord it's time to take them down and pod the lot.
If you pod them before the pods have dried the beans are prone to mould. I think there must be some inhibitor in the pod lining that stops that.
The podded beans are popped in a jar for storage until required for Chilli con Beany or Bean Dip at a later date.
It's been a good year for beans. I picked runner beans today, a whole month later than I would have expected. The September cold snap normally switches them off, but this year they stuttered and picked up again. That's a real bonus.
All the same I decided today to harvest the Canadian Wonder. The weather must be turning soon, and already they have stopped in their tracks. Time to bring them under cover. These are usually classified as Dwarf French beans in the catalogues. I grow them for drying. They don't stay green for long and for seed they produce what we all know as "Red Kidney Beans"
I've got all stages left on the plants:
It is important to dry them off properly, and to do so in the pod. There must be some magic natural chemical in the pods which inhibits mould. It's hard to enough find space. Most are in the plastic covered shelving (the basil has been moved indoors). But for the final push this is a surefire place to dry them off completely.
I promised a picture of the current cropper and here it is:
Sungold
Last year I tried to grow these and they failed to prosper, due to the wet cold summer and the lack of adequate support.
The only beans to crop earlier were the Broad Beans.
Broad Beans
And here's Runner Bean Painted Lady. A very old variety 1633? one source says. They may have been the first to cross the Atlantic. As I tried about four varieties of climbing bean last year and the runners were the only ones to pod I just stuck to the one pole bean this year - and only one variety of that. There are tons of flowers and the bees are going mad for them so I'm hoping the recent wet weather won't have washed away too many before they set.
Painted Lady
Back to dwarf beans, aside from the Sungold I'm growing Canadian Wonder to dry. They are in the foreground here, and looking very healthy. Hopefully this will translate into lots of beans!
