h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: How To Grow Broad Beans - A27618032
Author: RadoxTheGreen - Keeper Of The Cabbits - using GuideDog for Open Office ( A7720562 ) - U194063

Hi there!

Having been here for five years I thought it was time I put something in the guide (and besides, Gosho was moaning recently that there aren't enough 'how to' entries in the guide). So, having done a quick search and not found a similar entry, I thought I would throw this to the PR wolves and see what gets devoured.

Good work!
Clear and well structured.

the next years crop
the next year's crop

Before you sow your beans you will need to dig over the ground thoroughly. This is usually a good practice before planting most types of crops but Broad Beans cope with heavy soil so don't be too concerned about getting it to look like powder, the beans will grow in most soils without a problem.
The second sentence seems to almost but not quite contradict the first.
As for most crops, the ground should be dug over thoroughly before planting. Broad beans will, however, grow in most soils without a problem, and cope quite well with heavy soil, so there is no need to rake the soil to a fine powder.
I'm not sure whether that's any better, actually, but it might be clearer.

spray the crop with a liquid derris or equivalent product
Could that do with a footnote? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/derris

a 1954 gardening book
Could we have a name?

A good tip is to try and offset the double rows.
try to

That is to say, if you were running a measuring tape down the middle of the double rows, you would plant a bean in the left row, then one in the right 11.5cm along the tape, then one in the left 11.5cm along again, then repeat the process along the rows until the last bean is in place.
Like a slalom pattern?

keep the ground around the roots free of weeds with regular hoeing or hand weeding if you don't trust your skills with the hoe.
keep the ground around the roots free of weeds with regular hoeing (or hand weeding if you don't trust your skills with the hoe).
This reads better to me, but then, I like that sort of thing.

Keep the beans well watered around the base in dry periods if pods are forming on the plant.
This sentence is tagged onto the end of a paragraph about providing support. Should it not be somewhere else?

This guide entry was created with GUIDE DOG for OPEN OFFICE
Is that why you have subheaders all the way through instead of headers?

TRiG.

>> Is that why you have subheaders all the way through instead of headers? <<

Er, no it's cos the two buttons are next to each other on the GuideDog toolbar and I clicked and copied the wrong one. Ahem...

Working on the rest of the points now

Done!

I've moved a paragraph and done some rewording. Hopefully, it reads a bit better now.

It reads very well. If I had a garden, I'd certainly give it a try. I have grown broad beans on my balcony, mind, but the harvest isn't very much, due to the small amount of plants. Still, the kids love eating beans or cucumbers, tomatoes or peppers I grow on the balcony, so it's worth doing.

I like your footnote on Derris.

Broad beans have large shells with cavities in them where the beans aren't. If they are boiled in their shells and served warm, you can get a squirt of very hot water into your mouth when you bite. (Maybe beans large enough to do this to you should not be boiled in their shells, but my mother does it.) Just a saftey note to keep in mind, but it probably doesn't need to be in the entry.

TRiG.

That usually happens when the bean scar has turned black and the case of the bean hardens, which is possibly why some cookery books say to split the case on older broad beans and just use the split beans inside. I didn't want to put too much about the cooking side as I wanted this to be an entry on growing rather than cooking (and it's long enough already). There's scope there for a 'How To Cook Broad Beans' entry at some point I suppose.

Nice one Radox, were still getting some huge longbeans from the two plants we have in our garden.

I must admit, you don't mention the flowers, which I think are very pretty. The red ones on ours my little girl thought were great, but mistook them for the beans at first. When she saw the huge great foot long monster ones a few weeks later she was astounded. And yum, are they sweet!

Oh, and how much is Guide Dog paying you for the promotion? I think you can safely remove that sentence and link

For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know what GuideDog is, it lets you write your guide entries on the free-to-use OpenOffice substitute for MS Word. Your OpenOffice program effectively becomes a means of writing, editing and storing GuideML on your computer. You can write a guide entry and store it in GuideML on your hard drive without being connected to the internet. Then it's a case of cut and paste the file into the 'write an entry' box on h2g2 when you feel like you've done enough work on it to go online and submit it to h2g2. No more partly developed guide entries sitting around on h2g2 for all to see, unless you really want them to be there.

I deliberately placed the link at the bottom where it wouldn't be intrusive to the body of the text. Oh, and no, Felonious Monk isn't bunging me a backhander for promoting it. I'm happy to leave a link to GuideDog on the entry if the BBC are happy with it being there. Besides, not everyone is aware of the existence of GuideDog and if it encourages a few more people to get involved writing for h2g2 it's got to be worth the link.

At the end of the day, it's a free program for a free office suite and designed especially for use on h2g2. Nobody (as far as I'm aware)is making any money out of it and it helps people contribute to this site. I don't see the problem with it.

I don't see a problem with Guide Dog either, in fact it sounds great,. But it has noting to do with How To Grow Broad Beans, thus I don't see it as having any relevance to the Entry in question. Why not write an EG Entry about GuideDog itself if you want people to be aware of it? It distracts from the Entry you have written here. I understand you want people to be aware of GuideDog, but if this Entry is to be included in the EG I think the link will be removed in the editing process to be honest, so it's probably just as well to get rid of it now.

I'd leave it in while the entry's in PR, but expect the subeditor to remove it. It's hardly a big job to delete one sentence.

A good tip is to try to offset the double rows. That is to say, make a slalom pattern across the two rows so that each bean will be growing halfway between the two in its neighbouring row.
On reflection, is that what a slalom pattern actually is? Sorry, I know that was my idea in the first place, but I think I was wrong.

TRiG.

Agree about the link - I'll leave it for the sub to decide. I think I can reword the offset line thing to make more sense, but I'll have to do it later as I've got to nip out to the DIY centre before they shut.

Double row section reworded.

Introduction reworded to mention the flowers.

Anything else I should add?

I take it that would be a no then?

In that case I shall whistle for a passing scout.

I can't think of anything more to add, it looks good to me.

Great! Thanks for looking B'El.

You're welcome.

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