That's what runner beans say to me at any rate. Along with spuds, they're what I really remember my dad growing when we were little. Their jaunty red flowers are a mainstay of allotments and vegetable patches - and they need to be eaten up when they start cropping before the dreaded stringiness sets in. It's the first year that we've tried to grow them and they're doing pretty well, snaking their way up the cane supports and producing plenty of flowers.
I'm convinced that the best argument for growing your own vegetables is having a crop of fresh tomatoes. It's always a great time of the year when the first tomato goes red:
It allows us to look forward to a big crop throughout the later days of summer and into autumn, if we get enough decent weather. And there's something really luxurious about a fresh tomato you've grown yourself, still warm from the greenhouse.
Elsewhere in the garden, the squash plants are amazingly vigorous and are showing their first fruits:
And we're well into the loganberry season now. They make a great smoothie, whizzed up with some yoghurt and a banana and they're probably even more delicious with a sprinkle of sugar and some double cream. It might even be time to start thinking about starting off a Rumtopf / officer's jam / Hodgkin, preserving the fruit we can't eat in brandy or rum. Fished out of the liqueur, the fruit makes the best Christmas trifle.
Another treat we've been enjoying is a wonderful gooseberry and elderflower jelly - I must chase up Ali at Craft Matters to post her recipe here.
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