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Good to see you’re quick off the blocks for the new year’s bean growing! Happy New 2025. I have grown Bobis d’Albenga this season and have seeds, so I can grow it again next season and send to you if I get a good crop. It is definitely bush. I also have Grand-mère, as does Triffid who I...

200 varieties doesn't sound 'fairly new' to me! @heirloomgal's growing is prodigious 🤪.

No seed business, I'm afraid, but always happy to do a trade.

I wrote you a pm before looking on this main thread to say mine arrived this morning! Great excitement. Also beautifully packaged and in perfect condition. Thank you so much too. A wonderful Christmas present.

Great news. Every finger crossed. And I hope mine to you is able to crawl forward amongst the millions which must be held somewhere. Not to mention all the rest of the mail in this pre-Christmas period, which must be on its way to you. 🤞🤞🤞

I’m not sure what your reference to promoting cursing is, but just want to put in a good word for The Guardian. It’s one of the very best daily British newspapers and very reputable. I read it every day, but had missed the ‘ leguminati’ The Guardian has had a number of articles in the last week...

I agree with @heirloomgal. I grow mine in quite close proximity, often touching. I once had a report of a 3-way cross from my bean seed but that was an isolated case and generally the progeny come true. Very busy bees must have had some fun that year. A joy of beans seems to me to be that...

I enjoyed growing Zuni Shalako two years running in 2020 and 2021 and had good yields. Interestingly the degree of whiteness varied considerably between the two years. So if it’s soil conditions rather than climatic conditions, it must be quite localised as they were grown in the same garden but...

Some of the peppers I’ve grown this year have been almost five feet tall and almost as wide so quite a jungle in the end. As you say, they thrive on being close together which is a good thing as in most cases I didn’t know what size they would reach. It does make control difficult though, and...

Thanks. You’re lucky not to be too familiar with blight! If the blight attacks are severe, whole tomatoes just go squishy on the plant. If it’s more slight - some varieties are more resistant than others- rotten spots can appear slowly and gradually take over. Air borne late blight is just...

Which of your long-keeping tomato varieties was this? Here we're just hanging on to our last couple of fruits. But although they look sound when picked, the inevitable blight gradually makes its presence felt in storage. Has your crop remained blight free? I'm wondering how the longkeeper...

Interesting. Thank you. Those pepper plants have certainly produced! When you say plastic, is that a plastic frame you make, over which to drape the cover? Presumably it has to allow quite a lot of room for growth, or do you rely on the plant being ale to lift the light cover? I'm guessing...

If you're persistent with your grinder you can go down a few inches so it would depend upon your effort. I think it would be better in the short term for shallow rooting crops and I don't know how quickly the remaining roots would decay.

Yes, thank you. I'm lucky enough to have two separate growing areas about 100 metres/320 ft from each other which for me, not selling seeds, is very helpful and not too far from the article's suggestion that 400ft is good enough for many purposes. It doesn't help with polytunnel or greenhouse...

We hire a stump grinder from time to time after cutting the stump down to near ground level.

A rather belated response to your interesting reply. I’ve assumed that it’s lack of movement that causes bagged pepper flowers to fall off in the absence of bees (there’s a bees’ nest quite close) but that probably doesn’t make much sense. It might get too humid causing rot. Over heating is an...

There seem to be two slight variants of Ruth Bible in circulation. I received seeds from two different sources this year, one American and one British. The British seeds are rounder in shape The American ones a little longer and similar to the ones pictured by Russ on his website...

Oh dear. In the meantime you can’t receive parcels sent to you. Great sympathies. I hope the dispute is settled very soon. 🙏🙏🙏

Thanks for your thoughts. I haven’t had any trouble with bags blowing off, probably because I’m growing in a polytunnel sheltered from the wind. I think to cover the whole plant would need quite a lot of supports other wise growth would soon be inhibited and distorted. The main trouble with bags...

I'm also trailing behind on dealing with pepper seeds but have nowhere near as many as you. I only save seeds from the ones I've successfully bagged, but seem to think you've said elsewhere that you're happy to let them open pollinate and haven't found much, if any, crossing. Is that an accurate...