Runner Beans

Runner beans must be the all-time favourite beans, although they can be a bit temperamental. This is often caused by hot weather which can stop the production of beans, but usually a drop in temperature will get them going again. They like a well-prepared soil with plenty of compost or manure. Strong supports are essential.

Varieties

‘Enorma’: A good runner bean to grow if you want long pods to exhibit in your local flower show.

‘Painted Lady’: A classic variety producing unusual bi-coloured red and white flowers. Attractive in the flower border.

‘Sun Bright’: Has gold-tinged leaves which contrast with its red flowers. Not as vigorous as many other varieties and later cropping.

‘Sunset’: A pretty, pale pink-flowered form that can be kept compact by removing the growing tips when it is still quite small.

Growing tips

Sowing and planting

Runner beans are sensitive to cold so if you want an early start in March or early April, sow into pots or cell trays and keep in the warm. Sow four beans to a 10cm/4in pot filled with a multi-purpose compost, or one seed per cell if using cell trays. Plant the seeds vertically about 5cm/2in deep, cover with compost, water well and place in a propagator or on a warm windowsill. It will take 7–14 days for the seedlings to emerge. Remove from the propagator as soon as the seedlings start to break through the surface of the soil. They will stretch and go leggy if left in the heat for too long. Place seedlings in a green house or cold frame outside from about mid April.

Growing on

Choose a sunny spot to grow your beans and after incorporating some garden compost and a sprinkling of chicken manure or fertiliser, such as Growmore, erect a support frame. These can be two rows of 1.8m/6ft canes, crossed and tied at the top, or a wigwam effect of five or six canes. Position the canes about 30cm/12in apart.

By late May, or early June in colder areas of the country, the beans can be planted out. Tie the stem to the cane loosely to encourage the bean to grow up that support. Use slug control at this stage.

Water the plants in well and keep them well watered, especially when flowering starts, adding a general liquid feed once a week. Once the beans have reached a good length, start picking them – daily if possible to encourage the plants to keep producing flowers and set fruit.

When the plants have reached the top of their supports, remove the growing tips to prevent them growing any taller.

Container growing

If you have a large enough pot, you could grow runner beans up a wigwam of canes. Add some sweet peas too and you will have a very decorative planter for the patio. The problem with growing runner beans in a container is the danger of the soil drying out, which will stop the production of beans. A large container will hold enough soil to keep moist easily.

If you have a smaller container try growing the dwarf runner bean ‘Hestia’. This only grows to about 30cm/12in and has red and white flowers. Grow several in a large pot for greatest impact and fruiting.

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In the kitchen

A prolific summer vegetable that provides nutrition and texture for the table, a good runner bean crop needs picking every day or you’ll find a glut of large, tough pods. The beans’ sugars will start turning to starch after picking, so they are best eaten as fresh as possible.

Preparation and cooking: The larger beans tend to need de-stringing, by cutting off the stringylike fibre down each side of the pod, then slice diagonally along the bean. Young beans that are not too long can be left whole. They are best cooked quickly, on the soft side of al dente for maximum flavour. Sliced runner beans can be blanched, stir-fried or steamed and served smothered in butter, salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Storage and freezing: Store in a cool, dry place for a couple of days if necessary. To freeze, wash the beans and remove the stalk ends. De-string and slice. Blanch for two to three minutes and cool before sealing in plastic bags or boxes and freezing. They will keep for about 12 months.

Salad Leaves

The popularity of the expensive bags of salad leaves in supermarkets has motivated many to grow their own salad leaves. They are so cheap and easy to grow, and all you need is a windowbox or growbag. The choice of salad leaves is immense. They look great and taste wonderful and you can keep them coming all summer.

Varieties

American land cress, beetroot ‘Bulls Blood’, endive, green in the snow (perilla or shiso), komatsuna, lamb’s lettuce, leaf beet, mibuna, mizuna, mustard, pak choi, radish leaf, red orach, rocket, salad burnet, senposai, spinach, tatsoi.

This list is not exhaustive; there are more available and some of those mentioned can be left to grow to maturity, such as pak choi and endive to provide a much meatier crop. The seedling leaves are ideal for tossing into a salad, too. Mustard is a popular salad leaf and there are many different types giving different leaf shapes and colours and strength of taste. In the mixed seed collections there may be four or five of the above in one packet.

Growing tips

Sowing and planting

Sow salad leaves in short rows or in pots Simply sprinkle the seed fairly close together in the row. There is often no need to thin out the crop unless they were sown too thickly. If you do have to thin them out, use the thinnings in a salad.

Growing on

Keep the crop well watered and as soon as the leaves are 8–10cm/3–4in high, you can start picking them. Try not to take out the main growing tip but remove the young leaves at the sides. Salad leaves are fast growing, which also means they are quick to ‘go over’ and get too large and coarse, or too strong in flavour. Rocket is prone to going to flower and seed very quickly, although you can eat the hot, peppery flowers, too.

For a continuous harvest of young leaves, you need to sow successionally. This means sowing a short row or a pot full of salad leaves every fortnight.

Container growing

Salad leaves are the perfect vegetable for growing in a container, especially some of the mixtures of salad leaves now available. They are quick to grow and in a matter of days you can be pinching a few leaves from a pot to add to a salad or a sandwich. Sow a growbag of mixed salad leaves and place by your kitchen door, making them really convenient.

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In the kitchen

Peppery rocket or spicy oriental leaves, a bowl of fresh, mixed salad leaves straight from the garden or pot, sits well with almost every dish.

Preparation and cooking: Salad leaves should be picked and used immediately. Wash in cold water before adding to lettuce or salad. A large bowl of green leaves in different colours and textures as an accompaniment only requires a little light dressing: coat the leaves with a drizzle of olive oil until glossy and finish with a splash of balsamic vinegar or lemon juice. Dress leaves just before serving or at the table. Coated too early they become limp and discoloured.

Some salad leaves are suited better to particular dishes: rocket with its peppery taste is delicious with cold meats, especially beef. Leaves combined with other ingredients and served as a main course can withstand more robust and flavoursome dressings. Diced shallots, capers, citrus zest and mustard will all liven up your salad.

Storage: There is no need to store salad leaves when growing your own, just pick when required and you won’t get fresher than that.

Spinach

Spinach is a love-it-or-hate-it vegetable when cooked but the young leaves are popular raw in salads. It has a reputation for being high in iron, although it has no more than some other leafy or green vegetables. However, spinach is extremely nutritious and, as it is easy to grow nearly all year round, it is a good choice for the vegetable plot.

Varieties

Some varieties of spinach have round seeds, which are usually sown in spring to be harvested throughout the summer. Another hardier type, with prickly seeds, can be harvested into autumn and winter. There is also New Zealand spinach, which isn’t a true spinach, but looks similar with smaller leaves. It is milder in flavour and is more tolerant of hot weather.

Perpetual spinach is actually a member of the beetroot family.

‘Samish’: A late-sowing variety for growing under cloches or in polytunnels. Harvest the young leaves.

‘Sigmaleaf’: A popular summer variety that is bolt resistant and quite hardy, too, so can be grown for autumn and winter harvesting.

‘Tirza F1’: Good resistance to downy mildew, a disease that can be a problem on spinach. Also more resistant to bolting.

‘Triathlon F1’: Best from spring and autumn sowings. Fast growing.

Growing tips

Sowing and planting

Sow the seeds about 2.5cm/1in deep and 2.5cm/1in apart. Once the seedlings are through, thin them out to 8–15cm/3–6in apart. Don’t allow spinach seedlings to remain too close, as they will bolt.

Growing on

Keep the weeds down around the plants and water well in dry spells. Start to pick the leaves as soon as they are large enough. Leave the growing point intact so that more leaves will be produced.

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In the kitchen

Preparation and cooking: Simply wash small leaves and steam in just the water remaining on the leaves. For larger leaves, fold in half and pull away the central stem. Young tender leaves make an excellent salad green, while tougher stalks can be braised.

Storage and freezing: Keeps in the fridge for a few days. Do not freeze.

Squashes

Members of the gourd family, which includes pumpkins, summer squashes mature during the summer and early autumn and are best picked and eaten straight away as they tend to be softer skinned and do not store well. Winter squashes mature mid to late autumn and need a long season to ripen the fruit.

Varieties

SUMMER SQUASH

Patty pan ‘Scallop Mixed’: An unusual flat yellow or white fruit with a scalloped edge. The small, young fruits can be eaten raw or cooked as you would courgettes.

WINTER SQUASH

Butternut ‘Avalon’: Wonderfully flavoured with a trailing habit and good long-term storage.

Pumpkin ‘Dill’s Atlantic Giant’: The one to grow if you want a record-breaking monster.

Pumpkin ‘Mars F1’: Produces good 2.75 kg/ 6lb fruits ideal for carving for Halloween and eating.

Vegetable spaghetti ‘Hasta La Pasta F1’: A great winter squash that produces oval, orange fruits; inside, the spaghetti-like flesh makes a refreshing, healthy alternative to spaghetti.

Growing tips

Sowing and planting

Squashes are tender plants so should be sown in containers – one seed, on its edge, to a small 9cm/3½in pot or cell in a cell tray, filled with multi-purpose or a John Innes seed or No. 1 compost. Place the pots on a warm windowsill or in a propagator.

Check them daily as they are quick to germinate and, if too warm, the stems will stretch rapidly making them top heavy. Move the seedlings to the greenhouse or a cold frame to grow on, but watch out for slugs as they love young squash plants.

When all danger of frost has passed, the squashes can be planted outside. Space the trailing varieties at least 1.2m/4ft apart and bush varieties about 60cm/2ft apart.

Growing on

Squashes require a good fertile soil. They could even be grown on an old muck heap, as long as the manure is well rotted and no longer hot. Alternatively, dig a 30cm/12in deep hole with a similar diameter and back fill with some garden compost or well-rotted manure. Heap a half mix of soil and compost on top and form a mound. Put the plant into a hole made in the top of the heap, deep enough to support the stem. You may need to tie the stem to a short stake, as strong winds may shred the leaves of the young plant or snap the weak stems.

Summer squashes are best harvested when small: the round ones when only tennis ball size and the longer ones at about 10–13cm/4–5in long. They grow very fast so, if you have several plants, you may find yourself picking squash every day. If the fruits are left to grow, the plants tend to stop flowering as much.

Winter squashes, such as pumpkins, may take some time to start flowering. Leave the stems to trail naturally for 3–4.5m/10–15ft, then nip the growing tip off to encourage side shoots to form along the stem. These will produce a lot more flowers, usually male flowers at first but then female ones. At this stage, you should start to see one or two fruits setting. If you are aiming for a really large pumpkin, remove the growing tip about two or three leaves beyond the fruit. Remove the growing tips of other side shoots too, to encourage all the plant’s energy into the fruits you want to grow.

Feed occasionally with a general purpose fertiliser to encourage good leaf colour and fruit growth.

Winter squashes may not be ready until October after the plant has died back.

Container growing

Squashes can be grown in a large container. Ideally, one of 60cm/2ft in diameter. Fill the pot with a mix of multi-purpose compost and some garden compost, if possible. Plant one squash plant per pot and place in a warm, sunny spot. Keep it well watered, especially once the fruits begin to form. The trailing squashes will need to be allowed room on the ground or alternatively tie the stems to a wigwam of canes or up a trellis on a wall. Check the stems every day because they grow rapidly and need to be tied in regularly.

Allow pumpkins and other heavy squashes to trail as the weight of the fruit may be too much for a cane structure to support.

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In the kitchen

Beneath the hard exterior of a winter squash hides succulent sweet flesh. Summer squashes need to be used quickly and there are numerous recipes for this versatile vegetable.

Preparation and cooking: Cook winter squashes with the skin on, so the skin can be removed easily when it is soft and pliable. Cut into wedges, lay skin-side down on an oiled tray and bake until soft and slightly charred. The skins should come off easily. Chop the flesh into cubes and use in pasta dishes, risotto or lasagne, or purée into a sauce, soup or mash. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness and intensifies the colour. Summer squashes can be sliced and cooked in butter, added to casseroles, made into soups and roasted in the oven.

Storage and freezing: Winter squashes can be stored for a few months and are best picked as late as possible as you want them to be mature. When there is the risk of colder, damper weather, harvest the fruits and move to a warm room indoors to help set the skin. Keep in the warmth for a couple of days before moving to a cool, dry place to store. Do not freeze.

Sweetcorn

There is nothing more delightful on a warm summer’s evening than eating barbecued home-grown sweetcorn; the juices and melted butter dribbling down your chin. This crop is simple to grow and a great one to involve children in. It does need quite a bit of space, though, so it’s not really suitable for small-scale gardening.

Varieties

‘Conquest’: A reliable sweetcorn with early crops.

‘Extra Tender and Sweet’: A quick germinating variety said to be superior in taste and having better vigour than other varieties.

‘Indian Summer’: A supersweet type that is high in sugars and produces red and purple kernels among the yellow ones.

Growing tips

Sweetcorn is a type of maize and it produces its cobs of yellow kernels on very tall 1.8m/6ft stems – one to three cobs per stem. The top of the plant produces tassels, which are the male flowers, the female parts are the silks sticking out of the immature cobs on the plant below the tassels. The pollen from the male part of the flower has to land on the silks to pollinate the female flowers and swell the cobs. This is done by the breeze, which is why sweetcorn needs to be grown in a block, not in a single line.

Sowing and planting

Sweetcorn is best sown under cover to start it growing quickly before planting out. It is a crop that needs a long, warm season to do well. As it does not like root disturbance, sow the seeds into special long, deep pots that open up, which you can buy. Otherwise make your own pots out of rolled-up newspaper or toilet roll tubes. There is no need to remove the newspaper or toilet roll when you plant them out.

Sow two seeds per pot and place in a greenhouse or on a windowsill. In April no extra heat will be necessary. When the seedlings emerge remove the weakest to leave one per pot. Keep the compost moist and grow on in plenty of light.

Growing on

Prepare the soil where the sweetcorn is going to go, when the danger of frost has passed, by adding some well-rotted farmyard manure or garden compost. When the plants are at least 13cm/5in tall, plant them in a block 45cm/ 18in apart. Water in well.

As the crop grows keep the soil moist, especially when the cobs are forming; drought at this stage will cause shrivelled or undeveloped cobs. Pick them when the silks turn dark brown. Peel open a cob and push a fingernail into a kernel. If the juice is creamy the cob is ripe.

Container growing

Sweetcorn is not really suitable for growing in pots because of the need to grow in blocks to ensure pollination. However, three or four large tubs containing three or four plants of sweetcorn could be placed in a group and you may get a few cobs. As sweetcorn is a large leafy plant, it would look stunning in a group of pots on a sunny patio. The sweetcorn could be used to shade an area of the patio or even obscure an eyesore or view of the neighbours.

Large pots at least 60cm/2ft diameter will be needed to provide stability against the wind. Fill with a multi-purpose compost or John Innes No. 3, mixed with well-rotted garden compost, if possible, to help retain moisture.

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In the kitchen

Sweetcorn kept in its husk remains fresh for longer, protects the juicy kernels from bruising and prevents the cob drying out. Inside, the kernels should be tight and plump.

Preparation and cooking: To prepare sweetcorn, remove the outer husks and silky fibres. But you can bake the whole cob including husks in an oven or on the barbecue, which will make the husks even easier to remove. If you want to use only the loose kernels, stand the cob upright on its base and run a sharp knife down the core, slicing them off.

Cook husk-free cobs in deep boiling water for 15 minutes or wrap individually in foil and bake or barbecue until tender. Resist adding salt during cooking as this toughens the kernels. Serve with generous amounts of melting butter. Great fun to chew off the cob, so serve whole or chop into chunks after cooking when the core is soft.

Storage and freezing: Sweetcorn will keep for a couple of days in the fridge but is best eaten as soon as harvested. To freeze, blanch the sweetcorn for 5 minutes, either on the cobs or as loose kernels, then drain and cool. Wrap cobs individually in clingfilm before freezing.