Runner Beans – Page 2 – Chica Andaluza

I realised tonight that a month had flown past since we planted our vegetable “plugs” this year. We´re catching up as we´ve has plenty of rain followed by sunshine and a few misty evenings, which the plants seem to love!

Our herbs are doing well, apart from my parsley and cilantro (coriander) which are still looking a bit sad.

I´ve let the sage flower as I think it looks so pretty. I sometimes deep fry the large leaves in very hot olive oil for a few seconds and sprinkle with coarse sea salt as a little nibble with almonds and olive…and wine, of course!

The mint is going crazy…these were the stragglers which I had to pull up later.

Huerto 20 June 2011 006 — Rampaging Mint

I´ve also let the chives go to seed as the flowers are also lovely in salads.

Huerto 20 June 2011 007 — Delicious chives...great for potato salad

The basil is almost ready for the first batch of pesto.

Huerto 20 June 2011 008 — Fragrant Basil

We´ve got plum tomatoes.

Huerto 20 June 2011 009 — A Future Sun Dried Tomato

We´ve got a “wild” tomato which has sprung up from a leftover seed from a squashed tomato from last year. It has such a desire to live, we´ve let it do its own thing!

Huerto 20 June 2011 010 — Born to be wild....!

We have some (very) bitter salad leaves and the delicious chard. The celery tucked in there is slow to get going, but we´ll let it take its time.

Huerto 20 June 2011 011 — Green Leaves and Bitter Leaves

Tomatoes, beans and the little muscat vines.

Huerto 20 June 2011 012 — View down to my kitchen window

We´ve got rocket seedlings (must plant some more though)

Huerto 20 June 2011 013 — Aaah....less than a week old

The first of the runner beans should be ready to pick in a few days

Huerto 20 June 2011 015 — Teeny, tiny beans

The onions are doing well too

Huerto 20 June 2011 016 — Onions in neat rows!

We´ve got long thin green peppers and large bell peppers – but we can´t remember which are which. We´ll soon find out!

Huerto 20 June 2011 017 — Which one are you then?

Cucumber flowers

Huerto 20 June 2011 018 — Grown from last year´s seeds

The aubergine flowers are so pretty – wish they´d hurry up as I love aubergines (eggplant!)

Huerto 20 June 2011 019 — Hurry Up! Hurry Up!

Dwarf French beans (yellow and green) which we only planted a week ago

Huerto 20 June 2011 020 — Not quite Jack & The Beanstalk, but working on it!

And finally, radish seedlings…not long now!

Huerto 20 June 2011 021 — Peppery and Pretty!

As I said, we´re a little behind this year because of the very wet spring that we had, but we´re happy with progress so far and already dreaming of grilled vegetables, salads and bunches of grapes. Happy growing to you all!

21 Mayo 2011 001 — 5 Days Ago...the story starts

It´s the end of May and we only got round to planting out all those little plant plugs on 21^st May, shame on us. We´re usually at least a few weeks earlier, but never mind. The weather seems to be turning to summer, and I took a little look around this morning to see how things were doing. Five days on, and I couldn´t believe my eyes. Fortunately things catch up quickly here and I know, at least if the weather stays fine, we´ll be eating most of what we´re growing now into November.

The runner beans seem to be growing a few cm each day. Luckily we have plenty of canes for them. We had to put down some slug pellets, not really in keeping with our organic aims, but there seems to be a plague of slugs and snails this year.

Huerto 26 Mayo 2011 (1) — Jack and The Beanstalk...

The broad beans are still in full production, the freezer is also well stocked for when they do die off in a few weeks.

Huerto 26 Mayo 2011 (2) — Beans, beans are good for you...!

We´re very excited about our potatoes as we´ve never grown them before. Big Man was reluctant as they do take up a fair amount of space. However, they´re drying out now and will be ready to dig up soon, then once we´ve dug over the soil and given it whatever (organic) feed it needs, we´re going to put other things in. I have seeds for dwarf runner beans (including some very funky yellow ones, which I´m quite excited about). We´ll definitely put some radishes in as they grow so quickly, and then some lettuces as choices here in the shops locally are mainly limited to lettuce hearts or iceberg.

Huerto 26 Mayo 2011 (5) — Tired Potato Plants - which is good!

Last year a neighbour gave us some little cucumber plants which he had grown from seeds of his previous year´s crop. They went crazy and we had loads of delicious little cucumbers all summer long. We took his advice and saved the seeds from one cucumber which we let grow fat and sad looking. We planted them 5 days ago, and despite Big Man being convinced that nothing would come of them, this morning we found lots of little sprouts…we´re so proud!

Huerto 26 Mayo 2011 (8) — Tiny Cucumber Sprout - Future Gazpacho Ingredient

Our artichokes continue to flourish, but we will put some new plants in this year as the current ones are now three years old and getting tired.

Huerto 26 Mayo 2011 (4) — Artichoke leaves, a perfect snack for slugs

Our tomatoes, peppers and aubergines have taken root well.

Huerto 26 Mayo 2011 (6) — Pepper or Pimiento

Big Man hates aubergines (or eggplants) with a passion. I, on the other hand, adore them. Sometimes I sneak them into dishes without telling him and he cant always tell. I love Melanzane Alla Parmigiana, and make this as a treat all to myself so we have planted a little row of them to keep me happy.

Huerto 26 Mayo 2011 (7) — Aubergines. Love ´em or hate ´em?

And our lovely little lemon tree seems to have found its pace and keeps us supplied with juicy fruit for squeezing over grilled meats, making dressings and slicing into our “sun downers”.