David and our youngest, Harry, did a spot of gardening together and planted the broad beans. Harry is a super little gardener and often helps out. The broad beans were in desperate need of being planted. David said the strong white roots had wound themselves around the bottom of the pot several times. Now they are free to spread out far and wide. Temperatures look set to fall next week, so it’s going to be a bit of a shock for them after the cosy warm environment of the greenhouse. They are hardy little plants though, so I don’t think we need to worry. We had to make sure that all evidence of the compost they were grown in was covered over. Last year, the squirrels decided to investigate the compost, digging up quite a few celeriac and pea plants in the process. I love seeing the squirrels chasing each other around the tree trunks and hearing them squeaking and chuntering at one another, but they can be a bit destructive in the garden. Not only do they dig plants up, but they also chew holes in your fruit cage netting!
Broad Bean Planting
Broad Bean Feast!
We are really enjoying our broad beans at the moment. We’ve decided to pick them quite small this year. This is partly because we just couldn’t wait any longer, and partly because we’ve got an awful lot to get through! We went a bit mad sowing broad beans this year.
It’s well worth picking them small though, because they taste wonderful, not a hint of toughness or bitterness anywhere. They’re even good enough to eat raw. I have to admit a few seem to leap out of the pods and into my mouth as I shell them. Our eldest has also discovered how good they taste raw, and I’m not sure that’s such a good thing – she’s a bit of a gannet when it comes to fresh veg!
Don’t they look magical? The pods this year are pretty small with only 3 or 4 beans per pod. Not sure whether this is the variety, our own broad bean seed or the weather, but that’s quite a lot of shelling to get enough for 6 people. Well worth it though, and I often have a few little helping hands.
Veg Gardener’s Treat – Broad Bean Tops
Yesterday we ate something that you will NEVER see in the shops – broad bean tops! These are really special and something that only vegetable gardeners get to eat – a truly delicious, once a year treat. In fact, we enjoyed them so much that we immediately started talking about how we could plant our entire patch with broad beans in November or December, just so that we can eat the tops! The great thing is that the tops need pinching out of the broad beans anyway (to stop those horrible blackfly from infesting the plant), but, whatever you do, do not throw them away! Pick before the aphids make a home, give them a wash if you like, and then put in boiling water for 4 minutes. Drain, squeeze out any excess water, and coat with butter. Heavenly!
Broad Beans are Flowering Well
The broad beans are in full flower and I’ve seen a few bumble bees doing their thing. The plants are from seed gathered last year and, other than being a little on the short side, appear to be doing well. We’ve had to water them a few times, which we’re not used to…but I’m not going to complain about the glorious weather we’ve had recently. The purple sprouting broccoli, which has done us so well, is finally saying the season is over, so we’re looking forward to the next ‘big crop’ coming along.
Information on growing broad beans
Broad Beans are Planted Out
The broad bean seedlings have left the comfort of the greenhouse and are now outside.
As a quick tip – if you want to get the spacing right when you plant seedlings out, lay them on the ground still in their pots, and then you can jiggle (technical term!) their positioning around until they’re evenly spaced. Then just plant them one at a time, maintaining their position….as seen above (note the use of our cheap plant pots).
All in neat double rows….
Don’t forget to water newly planted seedlings in, to help settle their roots and give them a good start.
Finally, to keep them snug , we’ve popped them under some horticultural fleece. Fleece creates a pocket of still warmer air around that plants that we have found definitely speeds up development.
Sprouting Broad Bean Seeds
We’ve tried two different ways of starting our broad bean seeds this year. The first was to plant the seeds into small pots which gave us an excellent germination rate. Secondly we had a go at “sprouting” the seeds by placing them on some damp kitchen roll, covering them with another sheet of damp kitchen roll, and then covering them with cling film to stop them drying out. After 4 days we had managed a 100% success rate and this is what our sprouting seeds looked like.
These 30 seeds have been planted into the ground. It’s a good easy way of germinating your seeds but once they have sprouted you need to plant them whatever the weather. Germinating your seeds in pots is more work but you do have the luxury of time, meaning you can wait for a nice sunny day to plant them.
All our broad bean seeds this year are our own that we saved from last year, so whilst they might not look as pretty as those you get from a packet, they didn’t cost us anything, and no-one sees them once they are 3 inches under the ground! Let’s hope they produce lots of lovely broad beans.
Excellent Germination of Broad Beans
To redress the recent series of mini disasters, I’m pleased to be able to report that we’ve had all but one of our 70+ broad beans germinate successfully.
The seeds are ones we gathered from last year’s crop, variety – “Medes Broad Beans”. We started them off in pots (in the greenhouse) and will be planting them out next weekend when they’re about an inch tall. Starting them in pots is, I admit, a little high maintenance but the germination rates are generally excellent and planting out plants rather than seeds also means that you can avoid gaps in your rows.
We’ve always done French beans (green beans) and runner beans in pots too, but this year as an experiment, we’ll be trying some in pots, some straight in the soil and some done as my dad does, pre-germinating them under damp kitchen paper and then planting them out when the rootlets are a centimetre long. Whichever works best we’ll do from now on!
Broad Beans Are Up!
As confidently predicted (after my small exploratory dig a few days ago), the broad beans have started to break through the soil. Great!
Most of the pots (photo shows our super cheap plant pots) now have those lovely fresh green shoots showing. I just love the colour of the shoots, it really is a beautiful fresh green. This does however now set a stopwatch going – we’ve got to prepare an area of the vegetable patch ready for them and it’s pretty boggy at The Hidden Marrow at the moment!
An Exploratory Dig in the Broad Bean Pots
There are parts of my character that fit well with gardening and others that fit well with a little push (shove). Waiting for things to happen (some call it patience) isn’t something I’m very good at and waiting for the broad beans to emerge has just got too much for me. So I’ve just had a little exploratory dig in the pots and am pleased to be able to report, even before they’ve broken the surface, that they are definitely growing. So, I expect a few of them to pop up over the next week.
Meanwhile, as if trying to teach me to enjoy ‘waiting for things to happen’, the chilies continue to play their roulette game of ‘Will I germinate or not?’ and we still have 5 out of the 6 in our airing cupboard. Oh, that reminds me, maybe a little more water might help.
Radishes are amazing!
Just popped down to the greenhouse to check up on my radish experiment (I’ve never sown them so early) and saw that they have started to germinate -yay. Then on closer inspection, realised how amazing the roots look so thought I’d take a piccy. Thousands of super fine rootlets – they really are spectacular. Would be amazing to be able to look at them if you were the size of an ant.
Also checked the broad beans that we planted in our cheap plant pots…(ooh we got cold hands that day – the compost was freezing!)
And lastly had a look at the wild rocket and found that was sprouting. Can’t wait to taste the first fresh salad leaves of the year! Rocket is the key ingredient to some tasty pizzas I’ll be cooking later this year. More on that…later this year.
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