Pinching Tomato Side Shoots and Chitting Beans

Just a little bit of time in the greenhouse today.

Pinched out sideshoots on the tomatoes and checked everything else was OK. Potted on the tasty king cucumber into a larger pot, this one may end up staying in the greenhouse.

Sowed some mixed saladings in a trough where I did have 4 Lollo Rosso lettuce until a slug got in. I also sowed some little gem lettuce in modules. These should replace the lettuce on plot 29 later when they are eaten or bolted.

Then sowed some of my French beans (Haricot Nain de Rocquencourt) purchased from Intermarche in Boulogne on Thursday into modules. These are reported to give (if my French is up to it) large crops of waxy yellow pods around 13 to 14 cm long.

Top Tip from ACountryLife.com forums

“An old grower showed me how he germinates beans so I thought I’d pass it on as someone might find it useful. Put a layer of compost about 1/2 inch thick in a seed tray. Water well. Space the beans out on top, cover with newspaper and wait. When the green shoots appear and the plants are a reasonable size, pot into modules or pots. This shows which seeds germinate and saves messing about with lots of compost and duff seeds. (It’s also fun – not a million miles from germinating beans in jamjars with wet blotting paper as we all did in primary school!)”

I will try this tomorrow with my Twiggy Kenya beans, which have poor germination.