Yes, I like Blue Lake. But my impression is that in general the round podded climbing french taste better than the flat podded. The last two years I've grown Cosse Violette which are an attractive deep purple.

"Christina Websell" wrote in message
...

"David Hill" wrote in message
...


Who remembers salting them down in Kilner Jars?

My grandfather used to do this and always came round on Christmas Day with
a jar as his present to us. As long as you flushed them well in cold
running water for a few minutes before cooking them they weren't too bad.




My other posting concurs with this.

Bill

On 11/08/2013 23:42, David Hill wrote:
Checked my beans today, about 40 ft row, not one bean, just empty
stalks, I've never had this problem before, could it be that bumble bees
cant pollinate runners? I haven't seen any other bees on them, and no
hover fly.

It is so weird - and worrying. I've seen more bumbles than ever before
this year, but hardly any honey bees. I'm seeing my neighbour at the
weekend to talk about his hives (non-medical variety), but I think they
suffered really badly as a result of last year's summer

--
regards
andy

On 2013-08-13 16:24:52 +0100, News said:
snip

It is so weird - and worrying. I've seen more bumbles than ever before
this year, but hardly any honey bees. I'm seeing my neighbour at the
weekend to talk about his hives (non-medical variety), but I think they
suffered really badly as a result of last year's summer

From the pov of eating honey that is a worry, I agree. But as honey
bees have been subjected to all kinds of disease and pest, it's sad but
not surprising that domesticating them has led to a bit of a crisis.
Wild bumble bees, otoh, are just fine, if our garden and greenhouses
are anything to go by and as they do just as good a job of pollination,
they're a welcome sight. One I encountered late this afternoon was
over an 1 1/4 inch long and made a noise like a Spitfire coming in to
land!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

In article ,
says...

On 2013-08-13 16:24:52 +0100, News said:
snip

It is so weird - and worrying. I've seen more bumbles than ever before
this year, but hardly any honey bees. I'm seeing my neighbour at the
weekend to talk about his hives (non-medical variety), but I think they
suffered really badly as a result of last year's summer

From the pov of eating honey that is a worry, I agree. But as honey
bees have been subjected to all kinds of disease and pest, it's sad but
not surprising that domesticating them has led to a bit of a crisis.
Wild bumble bees, otoh, are just fine, if our garden and greenhouses
are anything to go by and as they do just as good a job of pollination,
they're a welcome sight.

Only, they seem not to do as good a job of pollination. Numerous
posters have commented the same combination of unusual events in their
garden this year; hardly any honey bees; a bumble bee population
explosion, runner bean flowers failed to set.

Runner beans depend on insect pollination.

Janet

"Janet" wrote
News said:
snip

It is so weird - and worrying. I've seen more bumbles than ever before
this year, but hardly any honey bees. I'm seeing my neighbour at the
weekend to talk about his hives (non-medical variety), but I think they
suffered really badly as a result of last year's summer

From the pov of eating honey that is a worry, I agree. But as honey
bees have been subjected to all kinds of disease and pest, it's sad but
not surprising that domesticating them has led to a bit of a crisis.
Wild bumble bees, otoh, are just fine, if our garden and greenhouses
are anything to go by and as they do just as good a job of pollination,
they're a welcome sight.

Only, they seem not to do as good a job of pollination. Numerous
posters have commented the same combination of unusual events in their
garden this year; hardly any honey bees; a bumble bee population
explosion, runner bean flowers failed to set.

Runner beans depend on insect pollination.



I'm not convinced of that, our beans are doing just as well this year as
they have before and the bee keeper removed his hives from our site last
autumn. It depends on the bumble species I think, if they are honey bee
sized they do as good a job if they are the huge ones then they don't
because they can't get into the flower the proper way.

On a separate note yesterday evening I came across a huge bumble, and I do
mean huge, in the flower of our hibiscus hedge on the allotment. It was
absolutely covered in pollen all over and seemed to be almost drunk, it just
kept stumbling around inside the flower.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

On 2013-08-14 08:05:46 +0100, Bob Hobden said:

"Janet" wrote
News said:
snip

It is so weird - and worrying. I've seen more bumbles than ever before
this year, but hardly any honey bees. I'm seeing my neighbour at the
weekend to talk about his hives (non-medical variety), but I think they
suffered really badly as a result of last year's summer

From the pov of eating honey that is a worry, I agree. But as honey
bees have been subjected to all kinds of disease and pest, it's sad but
not surprising that domesticating them has led to a bit of a crisis.
Wild bumble bees, otoh, are just fine, if our garden and greenhouses
are anything to go by and as they do just as good a job of pollination,
they're a welcome sight.

Only, they seem not to do as good a job of pollination. Numerous
posters have commented the same combination of unusual events in their
garden this year; hardly any honey bees; a bumble bee population
explosion, runner bean flowers failed to set.

Runner beans depend on insect pollination.



I'm not convinced of that, our beans are doing just as well this year
as they have before and the bee keeper removed his hives from our site
last autumn. It depends on the bumble species I think, if they are
honey bee sized they do as good a job if they are the huge ones then
they don't because they can't get into the flower the proper way.

On a separate note yesterday evening I came across a huge bumble, and I
do mean huge, in the flower of our hibiscus hedge on the allotment. It
was absolutely covered in pollen all over and seemed to be almost
drunk, it just kept stumbling around inside the flower.

We're not growing veg this year, other than potatoes, tomatoes and
cucumbers but we have all sizes, shapes and colours of bumbles around.
In the last two or three days the Eucryphia has been a kind of high
rise restaurant for them. As you walk down the path, you hear this low
buzzing sound and then, as you actually get there, it's overwhelming.
I've never seen so many bees in one place and it was just the same last
year. There have been a few but very few honey bees and I have seen
precisely one ladybird! Some of the bumbles would certainly get inside
just about any flower but some, such as those over the Angelica gigas
prefer those open top flowers because they're too big to get into most
'closed' types of flower. We've had a lot of bumbles in the
greenhouses and garden, paying attention to the Salvias, as well.
Unfortunately, we haven't - yet - seen a humming bird hawkmoth on
Salvia involucrata which seems to be a major favourite. And bees do get
'drunk' - apparently lime flowers (Tilia) are particularly good for
that, almost to the point where it can harm them, I was told.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 2013-08-14 10:08:03 +0000, Martin said:

snip

After all the articles about how bad things are for farmers because of
climate change, there's a farmer in East Yorkshire expecting to get
his record crop of barley in the Guinness Book of Records as a world
record. Not sure what this has to do with the subject.

And I read today that the cherry crop is terrific. There's a dwarf form
planted in a Kent orchard yielding a terrific crop. The form is
'Gisela'.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon

sacha wrote:
And I read today that the cherry crop is terrific.

I read that, then noticed the price of cherries on Ox.St go from
2.50/lb to 4/lb in a week. :-(

On 2013-08-14 22:04:00 +0100, Victoria Conlan said:

sacha wrote:
And I read today that the cherry crop is terrific.

I read that, then noticed the price of cherries on Ox.St go from
2.50/lb to 4/lb in a week. :-(

Luckily, I only buy cherries for two of us. About 400g arrived
yesterday. My personal fruit bat has cleared the lot. I had 3! I'd
like to find some of those big white cherries so popular in France and
so rarely seen here for some reason. Trip to Riverford Farm Shop
tomorrow, I think and whatever they have, I'll be replenishing our
stock. It's such a short season that it's worth making the most of it,
imo.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

"sacha" wrote ...

Martin said:

snip

After all the articles about how bad things are for farmers because of
climate change, there's a farmer in East Yorkshire expecting to get
his record crop of barley in the Guinness Book of Records as a world
record. Not sure what this has to do with the subject.

And I read today that the cherry crop is terrific. There's a dwarf form
planted in a Kent orchard yielding a terrific crop. The form is 'Gisela'.

Gisela 5 is the most dwarfing rootstock for cherries, all our four are on
that rootstock. Strangely Brogdale didn't want us to have the tree we
ordered from them on that rootstock, they said it was too dwarfing for the
garden and best for container grown trees and I had to persuade them by
saying I can't do ladders. All ours are doing very well, I've had to prune
them quite hard this year to keep them within their cage and we got a
reasonable crop (the second year for 2 and third year for 2). Blackfly on
the new growth was a serious problem this year.

--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

On 12/08/2013 08:47, Bob Hobden wrote:

Depends on the Bumblebee, I understand some of the larger ones get the
nectar by biting into the stem of the flower instead of working their
way into it the correct way for pollination. I've only seen Bumbles on
our beans this year but we seem to have a variety of species and in
large numbers too.

We have the exact same situation. No honey bees to be seen. Plenty of
bumble bees, and I watched them on the runner beans and confirmed they
are biting into the base of the flower instead of climbing inside them!

There is a moderate rate of setting of the flowers and I have been
eating them for a fortnight, but there wont be as many to go in the
freezer as last year.

That said with the strange weather, most of the stuff in the garden is
behaving differently to normal.

Alan

On 2013-08-15 08:55:53 +0100, Martin said:

On 14 Aug 2013 21:04:00 GMT, Victoria Conlan wrote:

sacha wrote:
And I read today that the cherry crop is terrific.

I read that, then noticed the price of cherries on Ox.St go from
2.50/lb to 4/lb in a week. :-(

The same here. The source changed from imported to Dutch.

http://www.finefoodspecialist.co.uk/...ies-1kg/1.html
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 2013-08-15 10:07:33 +0100, Martin said:

On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 09:34:43 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 2013-08-15 08:55:53 +0100, Martin said:

On 14 Aug 2013 21:04:00 GMT, Victoria Conlan wrote:

sacha wrote:
And I read today that the cherry crop is terrific.

I read that, then noticed the price of cherries on Ox.St go from
2.50/lb to 4/lb in a week. :-(

The same here. The source changed from imported to Dutch.

http://www.finefoodspecialist.co.uk/...ies-1kg/1.html

Blimey!

Caviar with that?!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

On 2013-08-14 23:11:23 +0100, Bob Hobden said:

"sacha" wrote ...

Martin said:

snip

After all the articles about how bad things are for farmers because of
climate change, there's a farmer in East Yorkshire expecting to get
his record crop of barley in the Guinness Book of Records as a world
record. Not sure what this has to do with the subject.

And I read today that the cherry crop is terrific. There's a dwarf form
planted in a Kent orchard yielding a terrific crop. The form is
'Gisela'.

Gisela 5 is the most dwarfing rootstock for cherries, all our four are
on that rootstock. Strangely Brogdale didn't want us to have the tree
we ordered from them on that rootstock, they said it was too dwarfing
for the garden and best for container grown trees and I had to persuade
them by saying I can't do ladders. All ours are doing very well, I've
had to prune them quite hard this year to keep them within their cage
and we got a reasonable crop (the second year for 2 and third year for
2). Blackfly on the new growth was a serious problem this year.

The orchard I read about growing these watch the ripening like hawks
and move cages over the trees at the appropriate time, so the cages
must be quite a size, I'd think. I don't really understand that about
it being too dwarfing for the garden. Do they mean it spreads more than
it rises, if you see what I mean?!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk