Has beans

With but a week left until the Olympics comes to our glorious shores I'd just like to say a big thankyou once again to the miserable snot-snivelling public sector workers who keep threatening to go on strike during the greatest event we're ever likely to witness. If it was up to me I'd put the greedy fuckers in prison and each morning send in some heavies to pour freezing water over them and give them a few well placed slaps until they promised not to be such pricks ever again.

I've had a blight alert every day for about a week now and the red dots on the Potato Council's blight incidence map seems to have affected virtually every county in England except Leicestershire. I've been tracking it for several weeks and it has steadily been creeping inland from coastal areas, but thankfully it still hasn't reached us. It's the one piece of good news I've had in a horticultural capacity!

We had another huge downpour here again today although the forecast is for two whole days of sunshine over the weekend, but with the ground so waterlogged you are a tad limited as to what you can do. With 9 weeks to go until Malvern, last night I sowed a tray of french bean seeds 'The Prince' with seed kindly furnished to me by Northern Branch Champion Ronnie Jackson. Ronnie has just undergone a hip replacement operation and is recuperating so best wishes to him. I actually exhibited a set of 15 beans at last year's National just to see how they looked compared to everyone else's. Locally I don't think I've ever been beaten with french beans but as you can see when you compare my National set......

.....against the winners grown by David Peel....

....you can quite clearly see I have some way to go to get even close. Mine were on the 'beany' side and didn't have the condition of everyone else's. Admittedly I did grow them outside and you do struggle to get a blemish free pod, so this season I shall be growing them to completion in large pots in the greenhouse. Once the pods have set and are an inch long they can be the optimum 8" long within a week or so. I believe they need to be grown 'fast' so they are picked at their optimum length before they start bulging out, so hopefully, with Ronnie's special seed and sowing time I'll be nearer the mark this time around. However, knowing this year's weather there'll be an August heatwave and they'll have fucking gone past their best well way before Malvern!