New allotment tasks: finding room for beans and herbs

What you’re looking at was supposed to be my permanent herb and botanicals garden. On the right hand side, as you look at the picture, is what will one day be a ‘hedge’ of globe artichokes and on the left are the raised beds. In between is an area marked out with stones and with chipping paths in which I was going to grow herbs and plants for making toiletries etc.

Note the word ‘was’. As you can see, the most notable feature of the three beds, at present, is a bean wigwam. They are borlotti beans and while I love them dearly, they are definitely neither a herb nor a plant used for making toiletries. What they are, is extra. Extra beans, because we got a 100% germination from the seeds. And you can’t throw them away can you?

I thought we could give them away, but Himself sniffed at this, pointing out that we’ve already given away kale, tomatoes, rhubarb, alpine strawberries and chicory. Himself has a bit of a thing for beans, I think. A Jack and the Beanstalk complex perhaps? Anyway, he saw that the central herb bed, which is meant to become a home to lavender and borage and possibly lovage (very good for both the digestion and the complexion apparently, as well as making a lovely liqueur) and into it went the beans! There are more beans (Cherokee Trail of Tears) next to the sweetcorn too, but more of them anon.

So, for this summer at least, I’ve lost my central herb bed. The triangle nearest the path at least has some nasturtiums, marigolds and wallflowers in it, while the one closes to the fence has Love-Lies-Bleeding, dill and sage, so he can’t plonk vegetables into either of those (or at least I don’t think he can) but I can see that we’re going to spend the next few weekends arguing about finding places to put all our overstocks: I want more space for leeks, he wants more space for cabbages, and so on … It could get nasty in the allotment blogger household!

Labels: allotment-beans, allotment-herbs, allotment-summer-crops