Learning About Broad Beans

Like most gardeners, I have more seeds than sense and more varieties than vigour. I have unopened packets borne of impulse, the likes of fennel and gherkin cucumbers. I do not aspire to be a whimsical gardener; I want to learn valuable skills and soak up empirical wisdom through experimenting with methods and figuring out what works for me rather than relying on generic tips. The only way to do this is to specialise in certain plants, growing them year after year learning new tricks with each success and failure.

This is my second year growing broad beans and I've already witnessed different behaviours from crop to crop. Last year I planted in the autumn, over wintered the plants in the greenhouse and planted out in the spring. Most of my pods were harvested before the black bean aphid attack in June. We are at the end of June now and have escaped any aphid attack so far. I followed age old advice of picking out the growing tips once the first pods had developed. This has the double advantage of diverting the plant's strength towards swelling the bean pods, as well as making the plant less susceptible to the aphid.

A piece of advice I failed to follow was to not plant your beans in the same bed as alliums. Below you can see broad beans and mange tout alongside my garlic. So far I cannot see any ill effects. Both varieties and showing a marvelous yield. I have been eating the peas for a week and some of the bean pods are just about large enough to warrant harvesting some for the beans inside. You can eat the young broad bean pods whole but I prefer to wait until the beans have swelled to adult size.

A sight less desirable are my two other broad bean plants, whose yellow mottled leaves you can see below. These plants were started at the same time as the others, planted out at the same time but into a large contained with some spinach and lamb's lettuce, my reasoning being that the leafy plants would benefit from sharing the soil with the nitrogen adding properties of the beans. Well my salad leaves were devoured by birds and my spinach bolted and when a bed was freed up, I moved my broad bean plants to, what I though was a better position. I was wrong.

The plant above has borne two pods with no sign of further flowering. The tips were pinched out (maybe a little too early?) like the other plants. The two pods produced, however, are of a massive girth, at least in comparison to my other plants. This evening I decided to stop gazing at the plant in wonder and pick the two pods so I could get some enjoyment at least. The pods are pictured with a cherry tomato for scale:

When to harvest broad beans:

Squeeze the pods and if there is no empty space around the beans, they are ready to be picked. Sometimes the pods might look swollen and it seems like the beans are quite large, but when you open it up you find an vacant bean shaped hollow with a tiny bean inside. By squeezing the pod, you can determine if the bulge is bean or air.


I prise open the first pod to be met with a promising sight.

Opening the pod reveal three flawless, plump beans.

The second pod lets me down (see what I mean about the deceiving size of the pod), but still produces one good bean:

Is life too short to cook four beans?

Two minutes on the boil, a smidge of butter and black pepper and a beetroot leaf makes a banquet fit for an pixie.

So what have I learned about growing broad beans? I'm not sure to be honest. Maybe my two failed plants suffered from a second transplantation. Maybe I picked out the tips too early? Maybe they suffered from poor pollination. If so, why? A large comfrey plant only a metre from the beans draws alot of bees every day. Maybe there is a mineral deficiency in the soil. They are in a raised bed, which had my homemade compost added to it. Too much Nitrogen perhaps? Legumes can take care of their own Nitrogen requirements by harnessing it from the atmosphere. The successful plants, to the best of my memory, were planted in the bare ground with nothing added.

I think the Autumn planting, overwintering and planting out in the Spring with little fertilisation is the best way to go. My crop last year was far superior.