Evening stroll

[Horus]

I was out with Annie for an evening walk last night and as usual we went through the fields and woods. The crops are doing well despite the lack of rain and these fields were full of Broad Beans, I will line up a few pods for the chickens once they get bigger, but for personal use they are not very tasty, at least the ones I tried last year weren’t. Like the Maize corn that gets planted by this farmer it all goes into Winter food for his dairy heard and again has little taste to it, but the chooks may enjoy some.


There are lots of nuts and berries setting on the trees and bushes, the Beech trees are covered in nuts, shame they are not much use for anything other than maybe pigs and birds. The Hawthorns have lots of mainly green berries and the Blackberries are already forming, but unless we get more rain they will be very small come the Autumn. In the hedgerows the Elder flowers are on many bushes and some early ones even have bunches of green berries starting to plump up. Lots of Columbine twisting its way through the hedgerows with their white trumpets showing in great profusion.


Plenty of Butterflies about this year, but mainly the white varieties, I have yet to see a Red Admiral, Comma, or a Painted Lady, although I did see just the one Peacock in my garden the other day. Some flowers are now in season, lots of Meadowsweet along the canal giving a honeyed perfume to the air. Rose Bay Willow herb (or Fire Weed to our ex Colonial friends) is in full bloom and they to exude a heady scent as you pass by.


On our way back we passed by the Badger set and along the tow-path into the Maize field where curiously there is always this huge clump of Daisies that seem to thrive there every year.

[Ruby Slippers]

Definitely a bucolic walk, Horus!

[Grandad]

Very nice Horus and you describe it so well. I think you are a countryman at heart, so much knowledge of the things about you on your walk. And nice pictures to add to your descriptions

[LovelyLadyLux]

Interesting walk and lovely photos.

What do you think the Farmer is growing the broad beans for? Personally I LOVE them after they've been dried and re-cooked. They're my #1 favourite but I never get much taste out of them picked off the bush.

[Horus]

Thanks folks it was indeed a lovely walk.
Grandad, I am a country boy at heart, I even like Country music but seriously I do observe very closely the things around me and take much joy in the natural world, I never cease to be amazed by its beauty and complexity. Maybe I spend too much time in solitary contemplation as I stroll along with just Annie for company, so I think a lot as we walk along. I see the seasons change and can note the differences I see week by week, month by month and year by year, each season has its own particular treasures if you look around you.

LLL, the Broad Beans he has planted are a dwarf variety, I can tell that by the stems and as such will maybe only grow to about 20" high. Crops such as peas and beans will fix nitrogen in the soil with their roots which means other crops planted there will grow better the following year, but I suspect he uses the crop to make silage as usually the beans themselves are not harvested, but overnight the whole crop plant will all be gathered and gone. He does the same with the Maize crop, they will be 8 feet high with several cobs of corn on each plant, but they do not harvest those either. They will bring in several machines and cut the corn at ground level leaving the stubble to be ploughed in the next Spring with the corn stalks and cobbs being chopped together by something resembling a log chipper and blown into an accopanying trailer and taken away, again probably to make cattle cake or silage.

[Mad Dilys]

When I lived in Kent, we used to buy the "straw" from field beans for our goats - which they loved, I also used it in the farrowing pens of my pigs, in their chosen toilet area when the babies were very small and found it far more absorbent than wheat straw. When the piglets were a couple of weeks old they went out with Mum during the day. The straw was what remained when the beans had been threshed out of course.

I have known it to be used for cattle and horse feed when I was young, particularly for heavy horses when oats were considered to make them skittish. Then it went through a period of being used as green manure on fallow land to increase the nitrogen in the soil. Recently I discovered that the UK exports quite a lot to North Africa, Egypt mainly for use in fuul, the staple food of poor people. I love fuul - the beans aren't soaked, just washed and slow cooked in water with a tomatoes, garlic and spices. I don't like it served topped it oil or butter though some do, I prefer plenty of fresh lime or lemon juice, delicious.

Broad beans are quite different to field beans, the first noticeable difference is the plant is shorter, less pods but more beans in the pods Also the skin is white rather than brown like field beans. My family like broad beans raw when the beans are just starting to plump up. Of course they are also delicious steamed complete with pod when the pods are no more than 4/5 inches long, not a lot of people know that.

[Horus]

Mt favourite is Broad Beans picked fresh and lightly boiled, served with new potatoes and bacon or Gamon, delicious

[Mad Dilys]

When my DH first came to my house in the UK I never got broad beans to the table as he used to eat them fresh off the plant as soon as they were big enough.

Ever since I was a child I've always skinned them before eating...…..

[Horus]

Never really tried them pods and all, the furry inner layer would put me off eating them whole.

[Mad Dilys]

The texture changes Horus as they mature.