Green beans

Occasionally on TV food programmes the discussion will get around to the rights and wrongs of flying in green beans from Kenya ( they are probably grown elsewhere but Kenya seems to be the place most mentioned).
On the down side is the food-miles, pollution etc etc etc
On the pro side is the fact that growing and exporting things like this keeps many small farmers in business.

I have been unable to join in this debate because I've never ever bought green beans from a supermarket or from anywhere else.
I've never seen the need to eat them out of season and in season we have our own and the first few from early plants put into the poly-tunnel were picked today.

We have a bed of them outside which are growing slowly and a dozen more sown a couple of weeks ago - they will be put in the poly tunnel and will give a later crop ( hopefully).

We are not having a good time with runner beans. I planned to grow all one sort this year so that I could save the seed and know exactly what they are. The bed full that were grown in seed trays and planted out are all OK. The second bed sown straight into the ground just vanished. So we put some more in ( a different variety picked up at a car boot sale)  and about half are OK, the rest nipped off just above the ground. So in a desperate attempt to get enough to sell, I have used up the last of a jar of saved seed from about 2 years ago, putting 5 or 6 beans at each cane.
The Cucamelon plants have gone into the poly tunnel today. It will be interesting to see what they are like. 

With a bit more log splitting yesterday and with help from our son who came round for dinner, plus another hours work this morning, we now have a huge heap of split logs in the shed and 6 builders bags full to store for another year.  The log splitter has gone back to the farm.

I picked the last of the strawberries today, but now the raspberries are beginning to be ready so we still have fruit. Someone asked if we actually eat any of the gooseberries we grow. I do make jam and chutney with them and some will also go in the freezer for winter but they are my least favourite fruit and we have other much nicer fruit to save for winter, so selling them works well for us. With 16 punnets selling today at £1.50 each it is well worth the scratches. Also out for sale today were 4 bags of potatoes at 50p each, 3 bags of broad beans at 50p each and 3 cucumbers also 50p each. 1 punnet of raspberries at £1.50. Plus 18 boxes of 6 eggs, making a total gate  income today of £48.50. Not too bad! Expenditure today = £0 because we've not been anywhere to spend anything.

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Sue