the 'lottie is coming along nicely, even though the potato plants died,
my question now is, I want to put in over wintering broad beans, I friend gave them to me and said she grows them in her sheltered back garden in a raised bed. As the allotment is not sheltered I was thinking about getting a fleece cloche for them. looking on the Internet I have found some but not sure if enough light would get in for the plants to grow, I have started the beans off in the back yard so want to put them in soon :)
Don't worry about light levels, commercial growers use fleece and it's fine. Personally not had a leggy plant yet only problems with damage when I left it directly on top of plants for too long :( and hunting it down when it's gone flying :-[
Make sure you cover or seal the ends as cats love cloches ::)
Aquadulce Claudia (I'm assuming you're growing that variety) will stand most things the british winter can throw at it except for last year.... and I don't think a fleece cloche would have helped with that..... YMMV
chrisc
I agree that the right beans will survive the winter (except last year) and I have never covered mine with a cloche. But an elderly and very experienced gardener on my site earths his up like potatoes, pulling extra earth round the stems. I am not sure about the logic of this, but he always has great broad beans.
Fleece cloches seem to attract urban foxes like nobody's business - I bought two a week ago and they've been completely trashed by the foxes (as have my plants, sob)
But I'm told that they're very good if you have a site that isn't prone to annoying pests - a friend of mine swears by them.
I know that people are keen to 'get started' for next year but to be honest, the beans wont be ready any earlier if you sow and plant them next year.
In fact they may do better, mice and rats for example get very hungry over winter and they often eat anything they can dig up, you could be simply setting them a buffet, using up a length of fleece uncessarily and giving any perenial weeds hiding under the soil some where to overwinter in comfort.
Your choice of course.
My site is very exposed, I would have to build a serious structure to keep fleece in place over the winter.
My overwintered broad beans were fine, I sowed direct with 12" between rows, ignore what seed packets say about leaving 2'-3' between rows they seem to be happier closer together sheltering each other.
Find yourself some blue water pipe and bend over to form hoops over them and use allu pipe as stakes that fit in the pipe, try scrap yards ect then just put the fleece over this