Wednesday 10 July 2019

The last of the Broad Beans

I've had a really good crop of Broad Beans this year, which is unusual  - they nearly always suffer from serious Blackfly infestation and Rust disease, and often produce a disappointing yield.


This year I have grown 20 Broad Bean plants, mostly of the variety "Witkiem Manita", with a couple of "De Monica". This is a number that fits comfortably into one of my raised beds, which measure 1 metre by 2.4 metres.


Last week I picked over 3kgs of pods:


After this I thought there would only be a few pods left, because the plants were beginning to look very tired and some of them had started to shed their leaves.


On Sunday I decided to pick all the remaining beans, and remove the plants.


I was surprised how many pods I found - another 2.9kgs!


Most of the pods were in very good condition, clean and well-filled.


However, there were also some small wrinkly, contorted ones - those produced by the few plants that were badly affected by the weedkiller-contaminated compost problem.


It was very evident which were the affected plants - their leaves were mottled, crinkly and pitted, like this:


I cut the plants down to a few inches above soil level, removing the pods as I went.


If I hadn't wanted the space immediately for another crop I would have left the bean plant stumps in place to gradually decay, because their roots have nitrogen-fixing nodules on them which can be beneficial for later crops.


However, I have Brussels Sprouts and PSB waiting for a turn in that bed, so the bean plants had to come out! I know from experience that if you leave them in place they often re-sprout with another (weaker) set of stems and just get in the way.

Young Brussels Sprout plants awaiting planting
I've dug a few handfuls of pelleted chicken manure into the soil of the now-vacant raised bed, and the brassicas will go into it soon. In a small garden like mine you can afford to leave any space vacant for long!

6 comments:

  1. I removed all my plants two weeks ago and sowed green beans in that spot. And none have come up... Now i'm debating either sow another round but i don't know what happend to them... or put ths psb plants in that spot... i had a great harvest too of broad beans. The drought did them in in the end though. My snow peas on the other hand gave a huge harvest. I always find it a sad moment to pick the last broad beans... it really ends spring for me

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    1. If it were my choice, I'd plant the PSB. If the beans come up they can grow AROUND the PSB (especially if they are a dwarf variety)!

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  2. Interestingly we’ve chosen the same varieties of broad beans this year.

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  3. May I ask what you did with the remains of the broad beans?

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    Replies
    1. If you mean the stems and roots, then they went in the compost bin. The empty pods end up in there too!

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  4. Interesting that you've had a good crop this year. Opposite to my experience. Usually I get a really good crop but this year they were totally mullered by Rust - a problem I've never had before. We got a few smallish pods off the autumn sown ones, but the spring sown ones were a total loss. I've no idea why as I did what I normally do :-/ All the pods, stems and everything else have gone into landfill.

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