Garlic and field beans

A quick 20 mins in the garden to plant the last few handfuls of garlic cloves that didn’t make it into the ground before Christmas. This year I’m growing Elephant garlic, which went in in November, Solent Wight (a third of which went in in November and the rest today), Provence White and Maddocks White, both planted today.

I’m growing them in a bed that is also housing my autumn sown field beans and will have dwarf and climbing peas too.

I showed some peas in autumn and they grew beautifully in the wet mild autumn after the heat and drought of the summer. Unfortunately the prolonged snow and freezing temperatures have seen them off so I will have to spring sow.

The field beans however are doing brilliantly, repeatedly resprouting whatever the weather throws at them. I’ve never grown them before but wanted to try them as an alternative to broad beans.

There are some winter lettuces looking perky in the other end of this bed, along with my cold frame which is housing just a couple of angelica plants and some artichoke divisions. There’s a Czar plum, planted last winter but needing to be moved before it starts growing again, a job for the next few weekends now the ground has thawed.

Varieties I’m growing: field bean ‘Vespa’; Elephant garlic; softneck garlics ‘Solent Wight’, ‘Provence white’ and Maddocks White; climbing peas ‘Champion of England’ and mangetout ‘Golden Sweet’; dwarf peas ‘Karina’ and ‘Oskar’.