Labour of the month: February

We're more than half way through February, time for another Labour of the Month on PPPs – something that for me signifies the time of year in my garden or kitchen.

But first, I've been thinking . . . how do you see your garden? I mean, how do you picture it in your mind? Is it a series of photographs or a plan or diagram? For me a two dimensional representation seems inadequate, a garden is more than that, you need to see the garden in 3D and then add a 4th dimension – time.

I see the garden as music – a composition for a large orchestra with various movements and occasional solo parts for different instruments or voices, with sometimes a choir and complex ensemble crescendos (I wonder if this is a kind of synesthesia).

After the conductor/gardener has tapped her baton and settled the potatoes into trays to chit at the end of January, the opening notes of the overture start in February and I walk through the green door in the wall, into the vegetable garden – for me February means . . .

Sowing Broad Beans

I know that the gardening books will recommend
an autumn sowing direct into the soil outdoors
but this is how I do it and it works for me.

I carry with me seeds saved from last year's crop of Crimson Flowered Broad Beans – I've noticed that the pale green beans produce the deep red flowers, if the seeds are buff or darker brown then the flowers had cross pollinated with another variety and this year would produce white or dusky pink flowers.


A mixture of colours is nice, but I want to keep this heritage seed as true as possible, so I pick out the green beans to sow into pots of compost in my greenhouse. I plant three beans just below the soil surface in each pot (yes, I know that's cramped - but this method works in our garden) that's 90 beans planted – plenty for me and some to give as small plants to friends . . .


Now the music has begun – another season – another year – another orchestration!



Celia
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