[suziequeue]

I have finished the second raised bed and - looking at the rotation plan I've made out this bed should be legumes.

Is it too late to put a load of mature seedlings in do you think?

I want runner, dwarf French beans, mange touts, some sweet peas and some beans that I can dry and make into Boston baked beans. Haricot? Borlotti?

What do you think?

[bloomer]

if you have mature seedlings put them in, you may not get a great crop, but what else are you going to do with the seedlings?

[Olly398]

Yep, get them in I would say, summer's just starting isn't it? 
Olly

[Greenerlife]

Mature seedlings?  Blimey - I've just put seeds in yesterday! 

[pgkevet]

I don't see the problem.. it used to be that one shouldn't plant stuff when there was a risk of frost... so not before end may.
if anythign my french bean seedlings that went in 3 weeks agoI've got a tray of climbing french beans that i just put up 10 days ago - germinatin gnow and will give them a week to harden off. I bet they catch up with everything else.

[Somewhere_by_the_river]

I'm still planting some seeds Greenerlife  (though mostly ornamental at this stage)

Mature seedlings - definitely. It's not too late to plant beans from seed, you just won't get quite as big a crop if you are starting from scratch. Sweet peas from seeds now might be pushing it, but I've not even got my seedling ones beyond the pots they were sown in yet... Oh for more time and a better winter next time to get the groundwork done before spring!!

[cloddopper]

I have finished the second raised bed and - looking at the rotation plan I've made out this bed should be legumes.

Is it too late to put a load of mature seedlings in do you think?

I want runner, dwarf French beans, mange touts, some sweet peas and some beans that I can dry and make into Boston baked beans. Haricot? Borlotti?

What do you think?

 Navy beans are normally used for baked beans  , these might be a special variety

[benkt]

Runners from seed are still good to do - we are usually sowing them (into pots in the polytunnel before planting out) until the end of June and they'll give you a good late crop in  September and some years into October

[Lesley Silvester]

My runner beans only went in last Friday.

[Marches Farmer]

If we have a year like the last one then a good Autumn could see a reasonable crop.  As has been mentioned, what else will you do with them, or the ground?  There's a limit to how many lettuces you can eat in a Summer!

[Backinwellies]

I put some bean seeds in to fill some gaps where the originals hadn't grown a few days ago ... they are up and catching the other plants up fast .... great weather for rapid growth....go for it.

[ellied]

I had to replant half my runner beans a week or ten days ago and they're coming up nicely, sometimes I get so many beans I can't cope so a later/lesser crop won't be a hardship.

Sadly slugs got all my courgettes, squashes and pumpkins and the hens and cats between them have dug up a lot of the beetroots and other seedlings I'd planted out.  But I have plenty kale and broccoli under fleece in mid June as the only way to protect them and am thinking of planting more beetroots in the gaps now I have a sheep haik over the row to deter the hens at least.  Cats still slink under and use it as a bed for some reason, it was even worse under the fleece for one of them - irresistible hidey hole

I need a polytunnel, or a large caged/netted area with walkways, to keep everything out except pollinators..

[pgkevet]

I sowed way too many runner beans last year - couldn't even manage to give away all the spares there was so much. This year I've reduced runners to a small quantity and going heavily towards french beans and climbing french beans as being much easier to process - frozen or pickled.

I've got sowings 2 and 3 of brassicas to go out yet but so far the first lot are staying fairly healthy after a glitch with some leaf eating parasites (not slugs or birds or caterpllars this time) - Bayer's ultimate bug stuff salvaged them.

Courgettes in the greenhouse are being ripped out today - massive, massive plants that spread some 6 feet across. I'll crop the last off them and by the time we've eaten those the field plants will be maturing.

Yet more sowings of radish, spring onions and lettuce going in too.....

[HesterF]

Still sowing here too - mainly thanks to the crows who've ripped up all sorts. Grrrr. Fingers crossed they leave them alone this time (lots of netting and crow scaring now in place) but the timing is nowhere near as perfect as it was when I tried them first time around a few weeks ago.

[suziequeue]

Thanks for all the advice. After all that we decided to just focus on getting the raised beds built and filled this year and then start out with a full rotation next year. As it happens - we've been SOOOO busy this year with other things.


The strawberries have gone MENTAL...... and even without needing to do any weeding - I am still probably spending a couple of hours a week just managing the plants and the plot, propagating and picking the fruit!!