About a month ago, a friend from Longridge announced that his overwintered broad beans were up and thriving. So I persuaded my husband to take a trip out to the agricultural college where we purchased some beans at 'pensioners discount'. At the time I remember thinking that this was not our usual variety, but it was the only one available. So I went ahead. The packet promised that it was a fast-maturing bean. It would need to be 'up here' as spring is so often cold and wet.
This week my husband discovered that something was eating our newly germinated beans. We think that the culprit is the grey squirrel who has previously tried to charm us into providing food. The beans seemed to have been broken off at the tips and shoots were lying on the soil. Other beans seem to have disappeared completely. I would estimate that we have lost about a quarter of what we sowed.
Our raised beans are now netted and our surplus in pots have been rescued and put in the shed.
The lessons are obvious. Firstly, I should not have rushed to emulate M's success, after all, he is a Yorkshireman (local joke). I should have stuck to the variety I know and germinated them in the shed.
The predatory squirrel is obviously in the middle of the 'hungry gap', that time of year when allotment gardeners wait for new crops and live on what they sowed in the previous season. In our case this was curly kale and Jerusalem artichokes which provided soups and simple curries. Now we are on a fixed income and live close to a branch of the county's famed independent store. Our hungry gap years have gone but thriftiness they engendered persists.
PS After posting this, I would like to assure readers that I did not intend to trivialise the sufferings of this hungry world. You can see one of the African charities we support on my page. I remain very grateful indeed for all the blessings of this life.
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