Growing Broad Beans: A Complete Guide from Autumn to Spring Planting

What do you plant after the broad beans are taken out?

Thank you, Charles!
Excellent video as always!

Smaller bean pods are excellent in salads. They add a great mixture of flavors with a fresh salad. If you wait to the larger bean in the pods you can make a great mixture of hot Italian sausage with the beans in a pasta dish and spaghetti sauce. Just suggestion because the broad beans or Fava Beans have a versatility in meals.

Thank you ...your advice is invaluable to me.

were your broad baens in the no dig bed covered with mesh or netting at all?

I’m planning on overwintering some but I’m not sure what time to plant them?

Thanks Charles- your a legend!

What's going on with the small and stunted broad bean plants near the edge of the bed? Looks almost like weedkiller.

Thank you for another informative and enjoyable video. I planted Fava Beans/Field Beans as starts for the first time in early May. We are in Canada zone 3. They are growing really well. I’d like to let the pods get massive and so am wondering how they manage with Frost? Thank you

Fascinating... Do you uproot them after you've picked all the pods... I guess the plant matter makes great compost? Or can you leave them in the ground and get more beans next year? Anyway - thank you. I just subscribed. (5 years late)

Great video👍

Seems high as fuck

Yine charles dowding ve yine türkçe altyazılı bir video keyfim yerinde 😂

Thank you for the guidance Charles. Fantastic video

Great video. I love broad beans, but have never grown them. I learned everything I need to know here. Thank you. One questions I still have: I just bought some broad beans for today's meal and am wondering if the beans have to dry out for months b4 they can be put to work.

My fava beans won’t set fruit? Have strong plants with plenty of blooms. After a few days the bloom withers and drops with no pod set.

Any advice that you can suggest would be helpful.

that plot makes me jealous. the soil is soo soft

Thanks for making and posting this video. A one stop "shop" of broad bean knowledge!

Knocked it out of the park again, thanks Charles! I feel confident to plant mine out now! As a total beginner i find your videos so helpful and contain answers to every question I have . 😊

Love this guy !

Thank you for this excellent video. I sowed my broad bean seeds in compost in the greenhouse on the 12th March. It's now the 25th and there is no sign of any germination. Is this normal or should they have germinated by now?

It's 2 days before equinox & I'm about to plant out about 70 young plants. Watching this I wish I'd risked a winter crop, possibly next year. Broad Beans are a vastly under rated crop at all points of their growth & are a meat substitute throughout summer for us.

I have just planted-out my Crimson Flowered Broad Beans on the 10th February 2023, and they seem to be doing OK so far.
I sprout my beans in a jar in my kitchen, and bin any obvious failures. I bought these beans from Mr Fothergills in lock-down two years ago, and found that they were absolutely riddled with weevil holes. Out of 40+ beans I only kept twenty-five good ones and threw the rest away. I put my keepers in the freezer - just in case they had been invaded - but forgot about them last year, so I wasn't sure how well they would fair this year, but I only had one failure.
I did contact Fothergills about the weevil infestation but they blanked me and never replied.

How would you deal with the pinched out tops - eat raw as salad leaves, or steam like spinach for a few minutes?

What variety were the beans planted before winter?

Love broad beans

And

I think you are the only gardening chanel i have seen grow Broadbeans. They are my only favourite bean. and so yummy in melted butter. ❤

I use broad beans as cover crop in the winter. I don't eat them, I do understand your rabbits

When broad beans are grown on as transplants in module trays, do the tap roots stay shallow, or do they explore deep into the soil once transplanted to the beds?

I'm wondering if there is much difference in the depth of tap roots of directly sowed beans compared to those grown on in trays/pots.

Thankyou that video and explanation.

I agree with Jerri. You show the entire growing process, from putting the compost in the tray and sowing the seed, to pricking out the seedlings to a large pot if needed, transplanting to the garden, planning for different seasons of harvest, etc. I have learned so much! Many thanks! And I think you are simply a very charming man and it is a pleasure to listen to you talk!

how many times I can cut Faba Bean plant as fodder and still can get seeds too.

I am enjoying my first broad bean harvest after following your video. Thank you! I boiled them for a few minutes and slipped off the skin. What color should the inside broad bean be? I waited until my beans are mature and so some of interior beans are green and some are kind of cream colored and light green. Just wanting to eat them at the right stage :)

what does he mean by no dig healthy soil fewer weeds at the end?

Hello, i was wondering if the CD15 would be a good tray for sewing broad beans?

We're growing in large containers due to lack of space.
Beans started off well (direct planted around the end of Feb) but the leaf edges are turning grey and crispy and all the plants are looking very sorry for themselves.
Too much/not enough water?
Some kind of disease?
Take them out and start again (can we sow at the end of April)?

Enjoyed the video! Quick question: can I sow beans in a brand new no-dig bed? I’m concerned about the aggressive roots not getting through the cardboard. I considered I could puncture a hole in the cardboard above the planting hole so the roots could find their way. Just a little wary on this one going right in…

Mid April in Cornwall and my beans are in flower from autumn sowing but so cold that they are not setting.

Love your videos I was born in Portugal move to USA in 1973 with mom and dad 3 brothers 2 sisters I was 3 years old .l grew fava beans 3 years ago found fresh beans at a Korean market in the summer planted them in fall did good are they the same ? They do look and grow like yours

Another great video as always. I’m so encouraged to plant after watching these useful videos. I live in Canada a ver cold country and wish to know when is a good time to plant these beans, early spring or in the summer for late fall harvest. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and wisdom.

Great as always many thanks

Very helpful information. Hopefully at least a couple of the varieties of broad beans I've planted will be popular enough with my family, otherwise I'm going to have a lot of composting material.

Hi Charles do you have a video on how to harvest bean kernels?

Thanks Im in glastonbury. I sowed some aquadulce longpod heirloom bb in Feb indoors in very small cells, which they are already outgrowing, thus why I wanted to plant them out , will I be ok to put them out now,? do they need hardening off, will they get shocked by frost?

Very good. My first attempt at having a go at broad beans in March hmm🙃

I've really enjoyed these videos. I did an experimental planting of broad beans two weeks ago: four outdoors, four in a module tray in a cold shed (with large window), and four indoors on a window sill. So far nothing has broken the surface anywhere. In a moment of impatience I dug up the ones indoors, and three had died, but the other had a three-inch tap root that had reached the bottom of the tray. I'm not going to disturb the ones outdoors just in case.

Anyway, I was wondering if it usually takes over two weeks for them to germinate, or whether there's something I can do to improve success in the next sowing this month?

Hi Charles, you are on my daily learning schedule with your detailed and content-rich videos and thank you so much! Now I have a question: Do you pay attention to the position of the moon when you sow seeds? Of course, gardening is much easier if you can neglect this aspect. My best wishes go to you, your team and of course Stephanie. Ursula from Bavaria

Back to this video (yet again!) to refresh and inspire anew. These videos (along with your excellent books) are such a resource and a genuine gift to those of us following in your footsteps in even the smallest of ways. A belated, but heartfelt, thank you for such an amazing resource and well of inspiration at the exciting start of another year of growing and learning here in the very Highlands of Scotland. 👍 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🐂 😁