Broad Beans

The Broad Beans have taken a hammering in the last lot of wind. We haven't had a chance to stake them yet, and this makes them a bit easier to pick anyway. The tops of them are well over seven feet off the ground, and they are bearing heavily. I used to live in a town where you never locked your car, except in summer, in case someone found it open and filled it with zucchini. We have new neighbours just down the street (and we like their dog), so we have left a bag of broad beans tied to the gate. I need to think of other strategies for passing them along - people lock their cars all the time here, and the town is bigger, so you don't see cars you know.

Mum used to serve up the very small pods like French beans when we were kids, but we didn't like them. But it would save them getting bigger. We do pick them much smaller than you get in the shops/podded frozen though. Much nicer, and lightly steam them.

Broad Bean Salad
Lightly steam the podded broad beans, and chill. Mix with equal quantities of commercial tabouli salad. The one from Coles is good, the one from Woolworths/Safeway is unpalatable.

Also, can you see the new addition in the background? We got an arch for $10 from the $2 shop (work that one out!), and are about to grow the cucumbers up it.

First Bloom on Dainty Bess

 

The first bloom is out on my Dainty Bess, sitting in a large pot outside the dining room window. I was given this as a struck cutting in 1987, by someone who had carried it around since 1939. Now I continue to carry it around and spread cuttings (which take very easily), wherever I go.

It is very special for me, as the 1939 cutting came from very close to where I grew up in a quite remote area. And it is a stunning rose. I have two more pots, ready to give away, and will then take more cuttings.