Kate Webb, gardener at Symondsbury Estate, is responsible for growing fresh, full-flavour vegetables and herbs for Symondsbury Kitchen and Symondsbury Produce.
The garden is host to an array of vegetables, including a selection of beans…
“When people think of beans, they imagine green beans, runner beans and maybe broad beans. At Symondsbury Estate, we grow beans that many people haven’t heard of, including the Mangetout Shiraz bean, which has only been available to gardeners for less than a decade.
We like to explore different vegetables to see what works and what doesn’t. When it comes to beans, we enjoy choosing unusual varieties. Each bean differs in flavour, and guests love seeing and tasting something different.
When we plant our beans, we often begin sowing inside our greenhouse. We tend to do this in May or June; the prime time for growing beans. Inside the greenhouse, the beans are protected from pests, such as slugs.
Once the plants have grown large enough, where the beans are no longer near the ground, we plant them in soil in the garden.
My favourite beans to plant are the Kinghorn Wax bean and the Mangetout Shiraz bean. These differ greatly from your average bean; they are bright in colour and contrast the leaves, making picking time a lot easier.
The Kinghorn Wax bean is bright yellow in colour and the Shiraz bean is a deep purple, the same colour as the Shiraz wine, except this won’t get you drunk.”