How to Grow Broad Beans and Feed Your Soil
Share
Most people walk straight past broad beans, and they are one of the few things you can plant that leaves the soil better than it found it, which means the crop that goes in after them gets a free run.
They put nitrogen back rather than taking it out
Broad beans are a legume, so they pull nitrogen out of the air and fix it into the soil while they are growing, and their roots go down deep enough to open up ground that has gone hard over summer. Chop the plants off at the base after you have picked, dig the tops back in, and you have fed the bed without buying anything.
They go in when the patch would otherwise be sitting empty
Autumn into early winter is the window here, roughly May through July, which is exactly when the rest of the veggie patch stops doing anything. So while everything else is asleep you have got a row quietly building soil and setting up a spring feed.
What they actually want
A sunny spot and soil that drains, and not a great deal else. Raised beds are fine, big pots are fine. Our winter rain does most of the watering for you, so they are about as low-fuss as a crop gets, and there is no staking or netting or spraying to keep on top of. The taller varieties can go over once they are loaded with pods, so a light stake on those is worth it, but that is the only real job.
Pick them before the pods get old
This is where broad beans get their bad reputation, because somebody leaves them on the plant too long, ends up with tough leathery pods, and decides the whole thing is not worth it. Start picking once the pods are about finger thick and keep at it. Young pods can be eaten whole. Once they are bigger, shell them, blanch them and slip the outer skin off each bean, and what you get is bright green and buttery and does not taste like a bean you would buy.
The short version
Sow autumn to early winter. Full sun, soil that drains. Light stake on the tall ones once they are carrying. Pick from about fifteen centimetres or when the beans feel plump through the pod. Compost the stems, dig the roots in.
If you have got a bed that has worked hard all summer and you are not sure what to do with it over winter, this is the one I would put in. Come and have a yak with us about what else goes in around them.
Shop related products
- Brunnings Garden Compost with Seaweed 25L. Work it through a tired summer bed before the beans go in.
- Neutrog 1L Seamungus Liquid Concentrate. A gentle feed to get them established.
- Martins Organic Pea Straw Mulch 11kg. Keeps the weeds down over a long winter crop.
- Brunnings Seed Raising Mix 5L. If you would rather start them in trays.
Broad bean seed is not on the website, so ask us in the shop or have a look through the D.T. Brown seed range and the rest of the garden centre.
Keep reading
- A Beginner's Guide to Building Good Soil for Your Vegetable Garden
- Preparing Your Garden Soil for a Winter Vegetable Garden
Candeece. Anything that feeds the soil while I'm not looking is my kind of plant.
Follow our Facebook page: Strathalbyn H Hardware
