June

‘Purple Queen’ French beans are the sort of fun, sassy crop every stylish gardener wants to grow in their good-looking veg plot. They race up their supports, burst into shocking magenta flower, and then produce hundreds of gorgeous regal purple beans which are a pure pleasure to eat.

Very reliable even in variable conditions, Dwarf French Bean seeds 'Tendergreen' is a medium long pencil podded type that produces good yields of medium sized, 15cm pods that have good texture and taste. Very easy to grow, they give superb yields for a small amount of space, outlay and effort.

Blue Lake is a classic choice for early beans of highest quality eating. A wonderfully prolific French climbing bean that does well even in adverse weather, the dark green pods remain stringless and fibreless at all stages of growth. They are tender and rich, and filled with white seeds that are of incomparable flavour.

Runner Bean ‘Mergoles' produces decorative clear white blooms and white beans. This high quality variety sets well in almost all conditions and produces abundant yields of delicious, stringless, fleshy pods, which can be eaten fresh or frozen, or left on the plants to mature and harvest the mature creamy white seeds.

An improved selection of this well known and much loved variety, Runner Bean 'Painted Lady' is well know, as much for its astonishing bicolour, coral red and creamy white blooms as for the superior beans produced. The beans are deliciously thick and meaty with a sweet balanced flavour.

When I was young and idle, I’d dream of a self-refilling pint of cider. Now I’m older I dream of the slightly more realistic horticultural equivalent: beans and plenty of them. Bred for high yields and reliability, ‘Streamline’ gives heavy yields of fantastic tasty pods giving you effortless food for weeks.

Runner beans are all attractive enough for flower gardens or patios, but the 'Sunset Runner Bean' is in a class by itself. The luminous peach to shell-pink blossoms are absolutely beautiful and will look equally at home in your vegetable plot or your flower borders. The pods are fleshy, straight, smooth, and almost stringless when young.

Beetroot Bikores produces smooth-skinned red roots with dark-red flesh, it is a fairly sweet beetroot with a full and rounded flavour and has consistently been one of the highest ranking beetroot in taste tests. It is resistant to bolting and suitable for early sowing under cloches and for maincrop use.

Beetroot 'Boston' is an excellent improved Boltardy selection. The round roots have a smooth skin and good internal colour and texture. Slow bolting, it is ideal for early sowings, this maincrop variety can be sown from early March right through to late August.

Detroit 2 Crimson Globe or Rote Ruben is a popular improved Detroit globe beetroot. It is a classic, main-crop beetroot which produces excellent quality, smooth skinned beets with strong skin and ox-blood flesh colour. It is recommended as a good cultivar to use for succession sowings.

“The old Egyptian turnip or flat-rooted beetroot has the best flavour but is scarce.” Bob Flowerdew. Beetroot 'Flat of Egypt’ is a very old heritage variety that produces smooth skinned roots, often heart-shaped, with a deep red, tender and flavoursome flesh.

Chioggia or Barabietola di Chioggia is a globe-shaped heirloom Italian variety. With a rosy orange-pink outer skin and a distinctive dartboard pattern when cut, it is sometimes known as Bull’s Eye Beet or Candy Stripe Beet. Bands of white flesh alternate with bands of pink or rosy red.

Beetroot 'Boldor' is a superb, improved golden beetroot that offers superior seedling emergence, strong vigour and excellent uniformity. Attractive copper skinned, globe shaped roots with beautiful, sweet, juicy yellow flesh. Ideal for salads or for juicing. Sow March to July for harvesting June to December.

Extra-Early Purple Sprouting 'Rudolph' is bred to perform well in the September to February period but is at its best from November to February. With medium to large, deep purple, succulent spears that have outstanding flavour, team with Cardinal for a longer harvest period.