If you're familiar with the Harrod Horticultural Kitchen Garden, you'll be well aware that I produce an update of just what Sharon and I have been sowing, growing harvesting and composting in the garden each month.

You can find these updates here, and I can normally cover all the garden news in one article; but this month - a suprise for the generally quiet-in-the-garden February - I've received a glut of extra information, which thankfully you can find on here!

First up - bean trenches. The benefits of preparing the ground properly for runner beans is well documented; these greedy legumes love deep, fertile soil with plenty of organic matter and one way of providing these conditions is to dig a trench and fill it with compost or well rotted manure.

Sharon's taken this technique a step further and is running some trials to see which material performs best at the bottom of her trenches. She's excavated four runs; the first she's intending to fill with cardboard only; her recipe for the second is horse manure only; the third will contain home-made well-rotted compost and the fourth a layer of fresh garden compost.

"I'm looking forward to recording how the beans get on in their different environments this year," says Sharon excitedly. "I've already sown the runner bean seeds in rootrainers and I've got the support frames on standby as well. Once the weather warms up I'll start assembling the frames, plant out and we'll see what happens!"

Don't forget - keep checking the weblog daily for further news from the Kitchen Garden...