We have had a very hot and dry summer here in SW France. Some things have done well, despite the heat (salad, tomatoes, sweetcorn best ever, with two full cobs per plant) with almost daily watering. Thankfully we have a well, that has never dried up, and we pump from that and use a hose to put the water exactly where needed.
Other veg have been weird. Runner beans, and our precious, much-loved North Carolina Long Speckled Greasy Cut-Short beans (from Petra), have survived with daily watering. But they have made huge amounts of leaf growth, and very small harvest. The NC beans, see photo, even now are only showing very few flowers, I can count the growing beans on two hands, but they have a ridiculous amount of leaves. and that is from just six beans sown round each of these two wigwams!. Shame we can't be content with eating the leaves!
Has anyone else found growing patterns weird this summer?
No, they clearly got enough water. Usually lush growth and few fruit is down to soil that is too rich. Beans don't need a lot of fertiliser. Could this have been contributing to the problem?
No fertiliser, no manure! The only additional goodness that goes on our veg patch is a thin mulch of leaves from the garden, which we spread on in the autumn. The soil is underfed, if anything, a light clay. It must be the superb quality of the water from our well, which is fed by local springs!
Then hopefully they will put on a good last flush of beans before frost ends the season, Peanuts. Fingers crossed.
I'd read accounts from growers in the States that these mountain beans stop producing pods in the heat. Hoping you get a spurt of production as temps cool.
They are suddenly producing like there's no tomorrow :happy7: I had the first harvest yesterday.
Excellent news, they were biding their time and have now come good.