Broadbeans, and Other Vegetables

[In which I lament the loss of a dream]

The Dream: I visit my vegetable garden, as I do each afternoon, filling a large basket with fresh produce, and carry my overflowing basket happily to the kitchen, where I concoct delicious dinners with vegetables in a rainbow of colours. My girls rise and call me blessed (well, they eat small amounts of previously unfamiliar vegetables, anyway) and I shower my neighbours and friends with our surplus produce.

The Reality:

Broadbean Harvest
Eight plants grown from seed.
So few beans that they can fit into Steve's hand.
True, we picked about 4 more beans a week later, but that was it.
And after shelling they looked even more pitiful in number.

Thankfully they were delicious! I never ate broadbeans before and I thoroughly enjoyed them.
Steve and I ate them bruschetta-style, boiled and mashed with olive oil, garlic, parmesan and on toasted bread. We did not waste them on the girls, who continue to be fussy!
I will definitely eat broadbeans again.

But would I grow them again?
All that work for so little to show!

Perhaps they didn't receive enough sunshine. From the same bed we have eaten spinach, tatsoy, a little broccoli, lots of coriander, snowpeas and parsley. So it has not been a complete disaster. And for our first season and attempt at food gardening it was not really so bad ... I guess. And we did have the fun of watching them grow ... ever so slowly!

Our summer vegetables are looking much more promising, I'll show them to you soon!
(if whatever it is eating the radishes doesn't demolish the lot!)