Next week: Focus on vertical growing, grow outdoor cucumbers, keep peas and broad beans well watered, train glasshouse cordon tomatoes, and tweak vegetable planting distances.
PICKED when they are young and tender, there are few crops finer than homegrown French beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), available in both dwarf and climbing varieties. Given the right conditions and treatment they’ll yield at an astounding rate, and now is a great time to sow them.
Being a tender annual, compost/soil temperatures at sowing are important; at least 10°C (50°F) is needed. For very early crops (pods in late June), you could have started sowing dwarf varieties in late March under glass, then transplant seedlings into growbags and slide them outside in late May. But if your soil is light and free-draining, and you live in the south, you can try sowing undercloches now, but wait until June if you live in the north.
