Growing Broad Beans

I'm lucky to have any broad beans at all.

I planted out my broads when they were about 10 inches high and the slugs went for them like billy-o. They must be like little gymnasts in my back garden, as they seemed to be able to swerve all sorts of deterrents and reach even the most hard to reach leaves. Little bastards.

I only had 6 broad beans plants anyway, so when you’ve got a small garden/crop and you take a hit like that…

It hurts.

Anyway, there are worse things going on in the world, so I faced defeat gracefully and let the black fly do their worse.

Even so, we have a small crop to celebrate and pop on toast or something…

Things I know about BROAD BEANS

Plant double the seeds than you need, as some probably won’t germinate and means you have replacements for any casualties.

Don’t bother with little seed trays as they are quite large seedlings, so I go straight into a small pot.

Plant seeds at intervals, otherwise you’ll have shit loads of beans all at once and then none, although you can freeze them.

Slugs/snails love the leaves, especially on young plants, so be prepared for battle.

Black fly also like to be close friends, especially of the tips, so remove tips when you first start to see flowers or some suggest soapy water will piss them off. Because you tip them they won’t grow as tall as you think, mine never reach more than a meter.

Other than that, they are super easy to grow and are great for kids as the are such fast growers.

A passage from The Broad Bean Sermon

"Beans upright like lecturing, outstretched like blessing fingers in the incident light, and more still, oblique to your notice that the noon glare or cloud-light or afternoon slants will uncover.Till you ask yourself Could I have overlooked so many, or do they form in an hour? unfolding into reality like templates for subtly broad grins, like unique caught expressions."

Les Murray