Full of beans (except the runner ones)

The summer of heat waves rolls on, and the kitchen garden is thriving in its own organised, chaotic way. With most crops capturing the sunlight's energy during the day and putting on their growth late evenings and early mornings, each day brings visible change in the river garden. It's busy, beautiful, and endlessly interesting.

The time we spend harvesting gradually increases by the week as more crops reach their peak. The reliable suppliers - cucumbers, courgettes, and ever-bearing strawberries keep us on our toes, while the summer stars like carrots, aubergines, peppers, and beans are finally muscling into the spotlight. I could easily fill this entire update just listing what’s ripe, but let’s keep things varied - as the garden likes it.

One unexpected highlight has been the onions. We tried three types this year: Red Baron, Long Red Florence, and shallots. They were multi-sown through a weed membrane to suppress unwanted growth and hold moisture. By July, they were swelling beautifully. Some of them are monsters. The time to harvest is close when the green tops start to flop over. When we see this, we push all the tops over to help speed up the finishing process.  A week later, we pulled them and laid them out in the sun for a few days before they were laid out on a stack of pallets in a barn that is cool, dark and dry. Where there’s now barely a square inch left unoccupied by onions. I’ve even had to leave a whole bed in the ground to dry naturally because we’ve run out of space. A problem I’m happy to have.

The garden doesn’t just grow vegetables - it pulls in people too. I love seeing visitors relax in the shade of the doric temple, especially on bright afternoons when the breeze carries the scent of tomatoes and herbs. One of my favourite things is offering tastes of whatever’s just ripened to our visitors — like the ‘Lemon Dream’ peppers, which are small, sun-yellow, and unbelievably sweet with just the slightest flicker of spice. A real gem. For kids, cherry tomatoes and ‘Mini Munch’ cucumbers are perfect - easy to pick, easy to eat, and endlessly moreish.

The dry weather is causing problems of course. You’ll hear the same from farmers - those trying to grow winter feed for livestock as grass turns golden rather than green. Our focus has turned to the winter crops too, mainly brassicas like savoy cabbage and purple sprouting broccoli, which we transplanted in mid-July. They’ve needed near-constant care to get through this summer. Even so, we’ve lost a fair number to a mix of drought, caterpillars, birds, and an unusually intense invasion of flea beetles. Their tiny shot-hole damage is evident on every brassica. I’ve had to call around nurseries to find replacement plants - because I know just how precious fresh produce becomes during the colder months, and how important it is that these brassicas make it through.

Some crops just leave you scratching your head. Our runner beans, variety ‘Painted Lady’, look brilliant on the surface. Four teepees of lush growth and beautiful flowers, plenty of bee activity, yet hardly any beans. The flowers just drop. It doesn’t feel dry enough to stress the plants into giving up, so maybe the bees are somehow brushing the blooms off before pollination can happen properly. It’s one of those strange garden mysteries that will either reveal itself with time - or just stay a mystery. Next year I’ll plant a few different varieties and see what happens.