In article ,
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

/never has-beans/

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).

That's the Wicked Warlock, Shirley?

No, the idea that witches are female originated with the Victorians,
along with the idea that one shouldn't split infinitives. I have
no truck with such modern dogmatism.

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.

The idea is also to harden them against blackfly infestation.

Boggle. Mine never get attacked until they are a foot or more high,
and you can't overwinter ones of more than a few inches high, at
least if the winter includes any significant frost.

ATM I'm harvesting carrier bags of escaped fodder beans, a slightly
smaller relative, and they have done extremely well in the verge
alongside last year's field.

...

Plenty of bumble bees here in this bit of Norfolk, and from the earliest
times too. However, I haven't seen a honey bee here for several years.

The two things you report are probably correlated!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.