Print this page using your browser menu option, then click here to return

October: Broad Beans

Tip: When your broad beans are over, do not dig up the plants, but, rather, cut them down to a few centimetres above the ground. The nitrogen fixing nodes in the roots will carry on working for a while afterwards. You can plant around the stumps, and a couple of months later they will be brown and dry and easily pull out of the ground. In fact, if you cut the plants down to just above a healthy bud you can get a small second crop from the remnants!

This year autumn already feels well advanced and I will be sowing my broad beans in the next couple of weeks. Sowing now gives you the earliest possible crop. Broad beans are hardy down to about -10C, and will come through most winters even though they can droop and look very sad at times. Last winter, however, was just too much for them and I lost about 75% of my early crop.

All beans like a rich soil, so if you can dig in some compost or rotted manure, or even fill a trench with your windfall apples, they will appreciate it. You need to sow broad bean 'Aquadulce Claudia' for the winter. Soak the seeds in a bowl of water for a couple of hours, then push straight into the soil about a forefinger depth (5cm), 20cm apart in a double row (ie sow diagonally to each other in 2 rows with each bean, and each row, 20cm apart, and leave about 50cm or more between each set of double rows). Cover over the holes, and if you have a problem with mice try strewing pepper - or any other type of - mint over the vegetable bed, plus a few branches of holly. If you have chickens the holly trick seems to deter them too. The seedlings will take a month or so to appear above ground, and should be about 10cm tall by the cold weather, although they will survive as long as they are 3cm. They don’t seem to do much through the winter but this is normal!

Broad beans are a cold weather plant, and do not thrive in temperatures over 15C, so I do a second sowing in February, in exactly the same way, but usually with 'Masterpiece Green Longpod' or one of the other varieties. These will start cropping just as the early ones finish. I believe it is possible to sow a third crop, but I never bother as by that time there are other vegetables coming on in the garden.

The plants need very little attention, other than weeding - just keep an eye on when the first tender beans are plump enough to pick. If blackfly settles in on the juicy tips of the plants, pinch out the tops with the blackfly on them, and remove them to the compost heap. They are such an easy crop, so sit back and enjoy them (for example as in the receipe elsewhere on this website).