Last summer my runner bean plants failed to grow enough to produce more than a mere handful of beans but this season they are up to their usual height, scrambling up the canes into a billowing mass of leaves and stalks at the top. 

A lone bumblebee moves amongst the orange flowers. 

These familiar summer insects are a heartening sight but their numbers are in serious decline as a result of intensive farming and a reduction in flowering plants from which the bees can feed on nectar and pollen.

Radishes are often regarded as an easy vegetable to grow, enjoying both sun or shade and different soil types as long as they can get enough water.  They can be known as a catch crop since they only need to occupy space in a bed for short amount of time before harvesting. 

I have planted an organic variety in-between the rows of onions and they have rapidly grown into red, fiery tasting orbs and not only the roots can be eaten, but the leaves also. 

Radishes are a member of the mustard family, originally coming from China, and their name comes from the Sanskrit word rudhira which means blood, since they are usually a bright red colour, although there are varieties of radish that are white and there is also the larger black radish.