A
bright and sunny, but chilly day in Shropshire, as the cold nights continue to
deter a lot of the seed I’ve sown in the garden from germinating.
Not all the seeds though, because one plant
which does seem to have a higher than usual ratio of germination to seeds sown
than usual is the broad bean. And that’s a pity in some ways.
When sowing my broad beans I followed the
maxims laid down in the old rhymes associated with broad beans, which say that
on St Valentines Day, they should be in the clay; that you should sow far more
seeds than you need for the number of plants you hope to get – one to rot and
one to grow, one for the pigeon and one for the crow – and that if you sow
broad beans in the mud, they’ll grow like wood. Though that only actually
rhymes if you come from north of Watford.
What there wasn’t a rhyme to tell me,
unfortunately, was what to do if a lot of plugs of broad beans you ordered from
a leading nursery back before Christmas, and then forgot about, turn up after
the seeds you’ve sown are in the ground.
Try to avoid my garden when so many beans
are in flower is one they ought to do a rhyme about, perhaps, especially at
night, because there is an old superstition, known in some parts of the
country, which says that a field of broad beans in full flower has a scent
which can cause such a quickening of a person’s breathing and heartbeat, and
arouse such a general feeling of excitement bordering on intoxication in them if
breathed in too deeply, that someone
sleeping amongst them through the night can be driven to madness by morning.
In the garden, perhaps not at night if it
can be avoided. Trying not to breathe too deeply of any broad bean flowers
there may be around. Look out for Cornus
nuttallii, the Mountain Dogwood, or Pacific Dogwood, a deciduous, conical
tree, which has large white bracts surrounding tiny flowers in late spring, and
foliage that turns yellow, or occasionally red, in autumn.
