Yesterday morning I posted the following query in nz.general. At a
guess, I'd say the newsgroup readership intersection is little more than
a handful. There is no Kiwi gardening newsgroup (that's carried on my
server at any rate).

So far no-one's been able to help me on this, though I have at least
been introduced to a fascinating new word: widdershins, or withershins
(Google it if you don't already know). So I thought I'd consult the
collective wisdom of the urg hivemind.

Also I ask the question here fully confident that, even if no-one is
able to answer it, at least I will have succeeded in causing a whole new
bunch of people to scratch their heads and lie awake at nights just
wondering ...


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I'm a gardening newby here in the Land of Pom, and have just made a
discovery whilst checking out the veges on early morning patrol, namely
that my runner beans are climbing up the poles anti-clockwise (as viewed
from above), or to put it another way, anti-sunwise.

What I would have expected to see is that they would wind themselves
clockwise, following the sun on its daily journey around the sky, which
here (as in the southern hemisphere) rises in the East and sets in the
West. The difference is that instead of moving West via North (which it
does in the SH), here it is in the South at midday. Make sense?

As for runner beans -- I'm not sure they'll be in season just now, even
in Northland, but maybe someone who knows about such things can tell me
if they wind around poles the *other* way (i.e. clockwise as viewed from
above) in NZ?

I'm guessing that if they do, it's somehow related to the movement of
the sun, and not much at all to do with the coriolis effect :-)
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Footnote: of course the query is not confined to NZ (I just happen to
have ties to it), but any runner-bean-growing location in the southern
hemisphere.


--Neil.


--
Neil Trotter, Canewdon, UK. (Amend email address to use).