New Growth

There's one problem with growing plants from seed that I always forget; how can you tell is the new shoots are the plants you want, or weeds?! At the moment our flower bed is looking lovely and bright with all the big plants we put in a few weeks ago and now a few of the seeds are beginning to sprout too. Some are obvious, others have leaves that look just like the weeds that were there before. But at least something's growing, and if some do turn out to be weeds we can always pull them up later on in the season.

After the success of my lettuce last autumn I've decided to try growing another plant for food, runner beans. So today I planted out 24 beans into warm, damp soil, and we'll just have to wait a few weeks to see how they do. I love the colour of the plants as they grow and the gorgeous orangey-red flowers through the summer. Even if I don't get any beans I'll enjoy having the plants. Does anyone have any tips for growing beans? I've planted them out in large pots (12 beans in each) and I'm going to grow them up trellises against two walls (one south facing, one west facing).

With all the buds on the trees at the moment mushrooms aren't something I think about very much in spring. But we found some very interesting looking ones by a footpath into town yesterday. You can just about make them out in the picture below, the thin brown pointy things among the dead leaves! I've no idea what type they are though, any guesses?