As mentioned previously, I'm experimenting with not pinching out the tips of broad beans this year to see if it makes any difference with black fly. So far my experiement is going well. I've had some black fly on a couple of plants, but after spraying with my steely soapy water squirter, the black fly have died and my beans continue to grow very nicely. The ones in the front garden are about 4 ft high!
Someone mentioned to me that the other reason for pinching out tips of broad beans is it encourages the beans lower down to grow. Well, so far the beans lower down are growning just fine. I expect next week I'll have my first harvest of broad beans.
I don't know how representative this year is of every other summer when it comes to my small experiment. It's warm, but with cooling winds quite a bit, so maybe not humid enough for the black fly to really take off. So I'll continue with my experiment this year, and try the same again next year and see what happens.
In the meantime, only a week to go (roughly!) for my first broad bean harvest. yum yum yum - my taste buds are tingling just thinking about it!
