Paper Potted Beans

I've been busy sowing and planting recently. Most of my veg are now in the soil having been started off in the greenhouse. Could be a little early for some of the beans to brave the elements but I'm both optimistic and impatient so, combined with the fleece protection with which I've covered them, I think things will be OK. This year I started many of my beans in newspaper pots. Last year my friend Sean gave me a paper potter made by Nether Wallop Trading Co. It is a simple, tactile design that enables you to make seed pots from newspaper. Seeing as we only get round to putting our paper out for recycling once a month, there are plenty of unmade pots round here. Incidentally, Sean runs a wonderful little oasis of tranquillity just off the Kentish Town Road called The Boma: http://www.bomagardencentre.co.uk/

If you are ever in North London, I'd highly recommend popping your head through the door, not just because he's a mate. He sells a huge array of wonderful things for your garden and it was looking particularly beautiful and serene in the spring sunshine when I popped in last Saturday while helping my friend Mo landscape her weed patch, er, I mean garden.

Anyway, back to the paper potter... I've been growing a whole variety of beans, as you will have read in a previous post, some of which are significantly more vigorous than others. The borlotti beans took off surprisingly quickly:


I had, however, evidently firmed down the compost in one of the paper pots a little too hard. He showed no sign of breaking through the surface but the pot was steadily climbing above the others. Indeed, he had broken through the bottom of the sodden pot and was propelling himself skyward:


Soon rectified and he's now happily in the veg bed awaiting summer sunshine...