Hello and welcome back to the channel. In this week by week video, I’m going to show you how to
grow broad beans, from sowing, through the growing weeks and ending on harvesting this tasty crop.
They are frost resistant, low upkeep and pest free,
which makes them great for beginners and easy for those who are more experienced.
We start our diary in the first week of November, and sowing our broad beans into cell trays.
I’m going to use cell trays for two reasons.
Firstly, it’s winter soon and I’m going to want to keep these trays in a frost free place
and secondly I’ve just covered the garden in manure and I’d rather not sow directly into
that before it’s broken down. Sowing into cell trays also allows you to get crops going before
the ground is ready. It may be frosty and hard, or it may have something already growing in it.
Fill the cell tray with either a sowing mix, or an all purpose compost.
We don’t want any air holes in these cells, as this will impede on the growth of the seedlings,
so gently firm the compost down.
The Sutton variety of broad bean are great for growing over the winter,
and they will be ready to harvest around early summer. They taste delicious and can be eaten raw,
which is great for salads in the warmer months. They also only grow to around half a meter tall,
so are quite compact, and aren’t really bothered by any pests.
Push one bean into each cell, and any remaining beans can be stored in a cool dry place for
a year or two. Cover the beans with some more compost and gently press down again.
This improves soil to bean contact and will speed up germination.
Lastly, give this a good water.... Even if your compost is already damp.
Add a label and pop them in the warmest spot you have, for germination.
I’m going to keep these outside for their whole lifecycle as they can
rot when started indoors. It also highlights how easy they are to care for.
That was all week one. Moving onto week two, we see that nothing has
happened yet. They can take a few weeks to push out the soil, so don’t panic.
As it’s cold, you shouldn’t need to water these for a while yet.
We can see the start of germination at week three
and the tops of the cells are starting to bulge up a bit.
Germination is in full swing by week four. Sit the cell tray in a tray of water for 15 minutes,
if the compost is starting to dry out.
The leaves are starting to unfold by week five
and the seedlings will start to push roots down into the cell.
Week six shows the seedlings starting to grow new leaves.
Ensure the compost doesn’t dry out as they’ll now be taking much more moisture from the compost.
More leaves are developing over the next couple of weeks but, most importantly,
the seedlings are building up a really strong root system. Which we’ll see shortly. It’s almost time
to transplant so make sure the area in which you want to transplant them is clear of weeks.
We transplant when the seedlings are about this size. Some are taller than others,
but so long as the leaves have unfolded, they are good to go into the ground.
Transplanting is fun but it’s cold at this time of the year. So put a
jumper on and grab your hand trowel and seedlings.
Dig a hole in the soil, and try to make it the same width
and depth as the root ball of the seedlings.
Removing the seedlings from the cell tray is my favourite bit.
Place your hand onto the surface and surround the stem with your fingers, like so.
Don’t pull on the seedling, you wont need to and you’ll only risk damaging it.
Instead squeeze the side of the cell to loosen it.
Turn it over and catch the seedling as it slides out of the cell.
Like so...
Take a good look at the roots too. The seedlings have put lots of their energy into
growing down into the compost. If the roots are thick and white, the plant is healthy.
If the roots are very tangled, then they could have gone into the ground a little sooner,
if there are fewer, or worse no, roots showing, then the plant is not ready for transplanting.
Either way, we have learned something valuable for next year.
Place the seedling into the hole and press it down gently at the side
so the top of the compost is level with the top of the soil. Try and make the holes a
couple of hand widths apart, to give the seedlings plenty of space to grow into.
Repeat until all of your seedlings, which are ready to be transplanted,
are happily in the ground.
Unless you have rain ahead in your area, give these a good water.
This washes the soil around the roots and reduces transplant shock for the seedlings.
Now over the next couple of weeks, you may start to worry that the seedlings are unhappy,
because they aren’t growing. Don’t panic, they’re just recovering from being transplanted.
This is common and affects all plants when they’re moved from one place to another.
They’ll be focussing all of their energy on pushing down new roots, to make the plant stable,
and to gather as much nutrients as possible. Broad beans aren’t bothered by many pests and
there are plenty of rainy days at this time of the year, so you shouldn’t need to do much.
During week 14 we had snow in the South East.
Broad beans are frost hardy and won’t be fazed by being covered.
Over the next four weeks, the broad beans are growing on well.
Weeds will start to become a problem, so make sure the area around the plants is clear.
Give them a good water if the soil starts to dry out.
From around 20 weeks, the first flowers will start to develop. The broad beans will love
the extra sunlight hours... more leaves will start to grow, the stem will become
taller and the plants will start filling their growing area. You don’t need to support the stems,
and I won’t so you can see that they’ll be fine. If you want to keep the plant neat,
you can put a bamboo stick in the ground next to it and loosely tie some supports to the stem.
And that brings us to week 30 and we can start to harvest the first crop.
Similar to when you harvest greens and leaves, try to harvest equally across all of your plants and
harvest the largest first. You should harvest the beans when they’re ready, even if you aren’t going
to use them right away, so we can divert energy into growing the new beans and more flowers.
Harvesting is easy but also easy to get wrong. The stem of the plants is pretty weak so don’t
pull the beans off or you risk snapping the stem. Instead, twist them, like so...
Harvest what you need and remove any damaged beans. The largest beans and most developed
beans are at the base of the stem and we’ll harvest up the plant, over time.
I like to come back a few weeks later, to show you what happens when you harvest over time.
As you can see, I’ve harvested about halfway up the stem...
and the plants energy is now going into these newer beans up the top.
And that’s how to grow broad beans. Thank you for sticking with me there... This is the longest
diary I’ve made so far but I tried to keep the video as short and to the point as possible.
Thank you to my patrons for supporting me and a special welcome to both Jane and Winter
who have become the newest supporters of the channel.
There’s links in the description to where you can find more information about growing broad beans
and here are a few other videos which you may be interested in. Thank you, and happy growing.