In article .net,
Oxymel of Squill wrote:
:-(
row of broad beans, planted last October (was there really any point in
overwintering like that?) has empty pods. Little black dots where the beans
ought to be. There were one or two pods earlier in the year with one or two
beans, but nothing since.

anyone tell me what's gone wrong? Is there a witch nearby?

No, the Wicked Witch of the West was in Scotland and has now returned
to the USA to plot more evil. While he has left his British familiar
here, the latter seems to have no powers of his own (for either good
or evil).

In my experience, overwintering broad beans is a pretty futile activity,
as at best it produces a crop a fortnight earlier, and it is as likely
to simply waste seed and space. But some people seem to get it to
work.

My early ones have been a disaster, and I didn't sow them THAT early.
The problem has been the utterly miserable spring, which both caused
a lot to rot after germination and before developing a stem and caused
very poor setting (lack of bees). In fact, I have seen almost no bees
this year, and most of those have been honey bees (and it is the bumble
bees that pollinate broad beans). This will be due to the very long,
wet, warm winter - with no change when it came to 'spring'.

If we get a few more winters/springs this bad, it is going to cause
ecological chaos. In 30 years of gardening here, I have never seen a
year where there have been insignificant numbers of both honey bees
and bumble bees right up until July.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.