After the first broccoli (or more precisely, calabrese) harvest I made a cross cut in the stem and a few weeks after we got an extra harvest of shoots.
Meanwhile I am struggling to keep up with the runner bean glut - I have even taken to giving it away to our builders as without a kitchen I can't blanch them and the freezers are full. A few pods (well quite a few actually) have got too big to be tasty and will have developed a tough inner skin. Rather than use them to eat when I already have so many tasty pods I have decided to let them dry on the plants and use them as seeds for next year. Doing this will discourage the plants from flowering and creating new beans but I think I can probably cope. The books say that runner beans keep on cropping until the first frosts but I'm not sure I can cope with any more beans. In Cornwall at the weekend I saw that someone made runner bean chutney - I suppose that's a possibility if I get desperate. And if I ever get my kitchen back again.
On the other hand it can be good to clear things away. A recent preference for fast food has slowed our salad consumption. Unfortunately this means a) that we have put on weight and I feel toxic and b) the lettuce plants have bolted. An attempt to braised them from a recipe in Nigella's 'Forever Summer' wasn't quite what I expected and they are still sitting on the plot, gradually reaching for the skies. I will clear them away when I'm not spending all my time harvesting beans and tomatoes (52 kilos so far!) though I suppose they provide a good diversion for the slugs which are sneaking around the plot eating beans and tomatoes (fill your boots guys!). My other attempts at organic slug control was too gruesome to keep up. They recommend snipping them in half with scissors but when I tried it the poor thing oozed in a totally gross way that stopped me from ever doing it again.
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