Sowing Broad Beans is a very easy task, because the bean seeds are so big and you only need a few of them. A few days ago I forked into the soil a couple of handfuls of Growmore multi-purpose fertiliser, which has been nicely dispersed by the rain we had last Thursday. Then I just placed the beans on the surface of the soil in a line, adjusting the spacing to about 15cm between beans, and simply pushed them into the soil with my finger, to a depth of about 3cm. These ones were the Aquadulce ones, from the sample pack kindly provided by Hannah Flynn of The London Herb Garden. Aquadulce is a particularly hardy variety, which is often chosen for Autumn or very early Spring sowing.
Aren't they a strange mix of colours? I would have expected them all to be fairly similar.
Whenever I sow Broad Beans I expect to have one or two casualties or non-germinations, so I always put in a couple of spares at each end of the row. In the photo below the main row is in the direction shown by the red line, and you can see the extra bean seeds offset from this row by a few centimetres. If all the beans do OK I will probably remove the spares, but at least they are there if I do need them.
Amongst the beans I put in some "Cherry Belle" radishes (Franchi seeds from Seeds of Italy).
This fast-growing catch crop will mature before the Broad Beans grow big and block out their light. I would normally consider it too early to sow radishes, but they and the beans are now safely ensconced under a couple of long cloches, so I reckon they will be fine.
Radishes germinate very rapidly and because of this they are often used as row-markers for slower- germinating crops. You simply sow a few radish seeds along with the others, and they will come through much quicker, showing you where the other ones will eventually appear.
I'll wait at least another couple of weeks - perhaps 3 or 4 - before sowing my next lot of Broad Beans. That way not only will they mature at different times, but also they will all be able to have a turn with the cloches to help them germinate. I have four of those long cloches, which is enough to cover one complete raised bed - so in other words not enough!
I grew broad beans for the first time last year, and only grew a dozen plants as I didn't know if I liked them. This year I've sown three dozen, though a couple of the plants have succumbed to slugs already, I do hope this isn't the way the year's going to go as I had enough slug damage last year to last me a lifetime.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be starting ours in pots mark - usually two seeds to a pot
ReplyDeleteI really ought to invest in some of those cloches myself to get an early start. Yesterday I got so antsy to get out there and do something that I sowed a few onion, carrot, and lettuce seeds. Since there are hundreds of tiny seeds in each packet, if these don't make it, I still have plenty left to sow later. It rained last night so they got watered in. But when I went outside this morning, I discovered our cat thought the new planted area was a litter box! The funny thing is that the soil had been prepared a week or two ago, and the cat never bothered it until now. I suppose seeds could have odors that would attract a cat. Who knows?
ReplyDeleteHappy Gardening!
Lea
Lea's Menagerie
I ordered some Aquadulce broad bean seeds yesterday. Its getting close to our Broad Bean sowing season too - funny that we are sowing the same thing at the same time.
ReplyDeleteHooray for sowing. Frozen solid here. Bah!
ReplyDeleteI'm a long way from planting my favas. I'm sure our snow will melt at some point. Maybe mid March.
ReplyDeleteI love those cloches! I might pop a few more direct into the ground this weekend. I've got some that I sowed in November in pots that are really quite big already. I'll be interested to see if the ones I sow direct this month, catch up.
ReplyDeleteJust cooking last of frozen broad beans from the garden from last year - and it's focusing my mind, along with your words, on planting more!
ReplyDelete