Time for harvesting the beans is coming up (if you started your project as soon as the packs arrived, you may well be getting very close; otherwise in the next couple of weeks). A few people have done theirs already, and a good few more have been pipped to the post by slugs!

Now, in the previous years’ data, it seems that the number of pods and the number of beans in them is more closely related to the pollination received than the weight of the pods / beans (which is more related to the environmental conditions; how mature the pods are; how dried out they are; and so on). Since we are suffering even more slug / snail damage than previous years, I’ve decided to make a slight modification to the harvesting ‘rules’.

1) If you have already harvested, or are waiting for the 16 weeks / your beans to get a bit bigger, and you are fairly sure that they will make it to 16 weeks – then no worries, continue as originally instructed!

2) If your plants are getting battered, eaten, and you are worried that they are not going to make it to the 16 week mark, then you can harvest ALL the beans now / earlier. Please still do the counts AND the weights, but make a comment on the recording form that you had to harvest early.

Either way, still harvest all the pods at once, on all the plants, as this is what we have done in previous years – so to reduce overall variation, this should still be the method.

Hope that is clear! Do let me know if you’ve got any questions or problems.