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growing them this way but I only need a few plants as Paul isn't keen on broad beans - too many massive, chalky old ones when he was a lad.If I have any more problems with growing broad beans I may discuss them with fellow allotmenteers. My neighbour Vic

the pretty ones, leaving the others to grow to gargantuan proportions.Broad beans need picking regularly to ensure the plants keep flowering and producing beans, so mine have inevitably stopped cropping. The stems are laden with pods so large they're getting

and snails paid them a great deal of attention - a lot more than Lizzy and me - and the cold, damp weather seemed to stop them in their tracks. If you need some tips on growing beans take a look at the rhs website.They just sat there for weeks, getting

by growing some of their favourite plants: cosmos, sunflowers, candytuft, lupins and foxgloves. And blackfly also love nasturtiums, so if you plant them around your broad, runner and French beans, they'll act as a 'sacrificial crop', suffering the onslaught

as losing a few to mice last year, the crop was also a complete washout as the hot spring dried them out and then they were attacked by blackfly."That's it," I said. "Never again!" But Vic's beans looked so good, even a handful of them would be worth growing

, producing lovely straight, soft beans in copious quantities. (I know I said back in the spring that I wasn’t growing them this year but I collected my own seeds last year and I just had to try them out.) Collecting the beans at the end of the season was so

[brightcove exp=1463233149&vref=1600262047]I'm here at BBC Gardeners' World Live in Birmingham...I'm on Joe's allotment...I thought I'd check out what the competition was like.These are the veg I would recommend for beginner growers. They're really

keen vegetable gardener and he grows tomatoes and cucumbers in his greenhouse. These and runner beans are his particular passions. Over tea we've compared seed companies and their service, our favourite varieties and tips on when to harvest runner beans

next year. So here are my allotment New Year resolutions for 2009:I must grow crops that don't require regular picking as I don't live close enough to the plot to get there more than a couple of times a week. That's just not enough to harvest runner

the crop rotation plan I formulated earlier in the season.I'm already flouting my New Year resolution to abstain from growing crops that require regular picking. That would mean no beans, French or otherwise, no courgettes and no fresh peas. I really can