Baby broad beans, busy bees, not red currants, and other stories

Posted by louisa on Friday 27 May 2011 in growing | 4 comments

Last night, when I got back from my almost-dusk walk with Lily-dog, I spent a good 15 minutes tying broad bean plants to their bean poles. I did the same job a few weeks ago but the broad bean plants had decided to have a bit of a grow since then. Somehow though, when I was busy with the beans last night, I failed to spot an array of these bad boys almost the flowers:

I’m not alone in getting overly-excited about the first spotting of each different type of fruit/veg, am I?

I turned around from taking that photo to spot a bee getting busy on my not-red-currants:

I got the not-red-currants in a batch of super cheap soft fruit from Aldi in January, along with some raspberries and black currants. I’m guessing they were mislabelled and I’ve got raspberries where I thought I’d have red currants and vice versa. The not-red-currants:

Raspberries? Could be blackberries as blackberry canes were in other sets – but seems a bit earlier for blackberry fruit. I’d prefer it not to be blackberries as we’ve loads of wild ones nearby but whatever, I’m easy. I’m surprised to see these fruiting this year though, whatever they are.