Bad news on the plot, and I’m not sure whether to blame the wind or the birds.
I planted out the French beans and runner beans from the greenhouse now that they were a good 6in tall and flourishing. That was at the weekend. Coming home last night, I find this:
The bean at the back, with its leaves in tact, is the last one of five that looks like that. The rest all look like the twiggy specimen at the front, completely devoid of leaves.
I’m inclined to blame the birds as there has been a blackbird hopping around on the plot for a few days now, and there’s no sign of the leaves having been knocked off by the wind and then fallen down. Leaves that have fallen off other plants – in particular an ivy that we cut back in the winter – have a tendency to stay where they fell as the plot is quite sheltered.
Fortunately I do have some replacements still in the greenhouse that I can plant out to replace them, but I’m going to leave them for a week or two to see what happens. They may come back. If they don’t, then hopefully the replacements will be big enough by then to fight back against any marauding birds.
That or I’ll have to wrap them in netting.
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I had the same problem last year and in my case it was snails, or possibly slugs. They just scythed through them.
comiserations. same thing happens to me. I thought next time i’d put a pot over plants during windy days….?