Winter broad beans

[laurieuk]

I planted my broad beans today having  worked some spent hops into the soil. I started  them in a tray as I had bird or mouse troubles last year. When I started in gardening in the 40s we used to pay  a small amount and get all the spent hops you could move in a day, then they started selling them as hop manure now the small breweries are glad to get rid  of them so we have them on our plots.
I always use Aquadulce  as they are hardy to stand the cold.

[laurieuk]

[ed dibbles]

Mine were sown direct at the end of October and are just breaking the surface now.

It's not mice that's the problem with me but jackdaws that will peck up every pea, bean, and broadie seedling they can find. The area where they are sown is covered with heavy duty wire mesh to keep them off. Once they have grown a bit the birds leave them alone. (At least until cropping time when they peck open the pods to get to the beans inside)

Last autumn was warm so the beans grew really tall before winter set in and then were flattened with the winter gales etc. But they picked themselves up again in spring and gave a good crop so no matter how bedraggled they look better give them a chance to grow come spring.

[Digeroo]

Never had much success with over wintering until I started with Wizard.

The self sown ones have done the best.  They came up early September. 

Put in some later one already chitted but something eating them, I suspect squirrels.  They eat the bean and leave the top.

We have a kestrel again so I am hoping the vole situation will be better.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I never had any success with winter beans but that was probably down to waterlogging. I ought to try again next year; too late for this year. I always start them in pots as I get better results that way. I think the things which eat the bean and leave the top are probably pigeons. I have to net mine for a few days after planting out because they get pulled out and the bean eaten.

[Digeroo]

Did not realise pigeons eat beans, I could have netted them.  Have set a message in my phone to remind me next year!!!   Squirrels just move the nets, go underneath or chew through them.

I put a globe artichoke stem along one row, and somehow that has deterred whatever it was.  It was more a measure to mark the row.

No waterlogging problems but overwinter beans the stems rotted and I only got the odd bean.  Wizard are very winter hardy here.  The beans are about 2/3 the size of a normal bean, but they sure make up for it with sheer numbers of pods.  They are very pretty when flowering as well, the whole stem is just one mass of flowers.

[Vinlander]

I never had any success with winter beans but that was probably down to waterlogging. I ought to try again next year; too late for this year. I always start them in pots as I get better results that way. I think the things which eat the bean and leave the top are probably pigeons. I have to net mine for a few days after planting out because they get pulled out and the bean eaten.

I'm pretty sure the ones that eat the bean and leave the top on my plot are mice. I find their dens every year in spring - too unpleasant to look now and they always scarper - they've usually been in the last place I look anyway. The stems are still in the ground, wilting, and the tunnels down to the beans are too neat to be pigeons - they tend to flick stuff everywhere.

It's certainly not too late to sow  Aquadulce in London - we've recently had several mild days of heavy rain at 10+C, so at the moment the soil is still warm enough and hopefully the coming cold snap will persuade them to lie low; coming out too soon/quickly risks frost damage in a real winter (that's the problem with planting seedlings not seeds- but last year everything got away with it). I always sow in October and November plus a sowing of the better-flavoured green seeded types in March (unfortunately Crimson Flowered green beans are not better than white ones - I suspect the flavour got lost while breeding for flowers).

Sowing thrice usually means that one sowing avoids blackfly without being sprayed - but it's a different one every year. I think it depends on when the ladybirds appear (and their even more effective scary-looking larvae) - that stuff is impossible to predict.

Cheers.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Birmingham's that bit colder than London; the current temperature is really too low for anything much to grow. I'll probably start some under cover, let them germinate as and when it's warm enough, then plant them out.

[Tee Gee]

Like Robert I delay my sowings simply because of most of the things mentioned above.

That is it is too cold & wet here and I don't see the point of feeding the wildlife in this manner.

I find sowing in pots / root trainers in Jan / February eliminates most of these problems and based on feed back from A4A subscribers in previous years my beans are generally ready for harvesting around the same time as those people who sow around now.

But that is not to say these people are wrong..... as I see it ........do what is best for you!

[johhnyco15]

 i dint grow broad beans here on the sunshine coast however those  that do delay sowing until now as its so mild if they were sowed earlier they would be in bloom around Xmas which happens to new people on our site all the time  most of the beans of my fellow plotters are around 2" high at this time of year  a foot or so by Xmas and 3ft tall and in full bloom around early April  its amazing this tiny little island of ours has so many micro climates i find it very interesting i just love the diversity and how you can really appreciate the difference when on this site you get views from the whole country  fantastic plus for a4a

[Robert_Brenchley]

Things used to grow all winter in Cornwall, and early daffs would often be in flower by Christmas. Here, I usually plant broadies under cover at the end of February, and they start growing some time in March, whenever it warms up a bit.

[Vinlander]

We do get cold weather in London, (maybe slightly briefer) and I judge it by my Meyer's Lemon bush in the front garden. I'm about 8 miles out and most years I lose something off the top of it - I lost nothing but a few leaves in 2015/16.

Every few years the temp goes down to -10C, and kills the bush down to a foot high. The 3 bad winters from 2010 reached -15C on a couple of occasions and gradually cut it down to just an inch from the ground. It's crept back since and might hopefully reach a metre cube again in 2017 - which would mean 20 lemons per year rather than 0-3.

Anyway, I sow far too many broad beans to be able to coddle them until the weather breaks - I just don't have the room under glass, and I wouldn't trust leaving them to their own devices in a cold frame or cloche because whenever I've tried they roared up at the wrong time and suffered much more than bean seeds left to their own devices in cold soil (not to mention the mildew from being in damp air). Millions of years have endowed the seeds with the ability to judge their best odds for surviving/benefiting from most springs.

Losing stuff when it is a healthy burgeoning seedling is really annoying, but in reality I lose far more beans before  they sprout anyway - maybe pests are hungrier in the depths of winter?

I find laying any fine <5mm metal mesh directly on the soil (eg. plasterers metal lathing - and more than twice as wide as the double drill) will stop the mice digging where they can only smell the beans, and though they could dig their way under the whole mesh they seem to do that only half-heartedly if ever - maybe they just don't have the nous or the attention span - maybe they just get lost? You can put glass over the mesh to stop them smelling the beans at all - but that makes it even more essential to remove the mesh the minute the shoots appear or the slugs will be encouraged. That level of vigilance isn't such a problem in winter - they move pretty slowly while you'd rather be indoors.

It's not difficult to fold the mesh into a tunnel at that point to give them a bit more room (that shape to be used against birds on other transplants later).

It's true most pests lose interest in digging when the shoots have taken most of the life out of the seed. If I did bring on broad beans I would use the same system I use to get climbing beans and peas to at least 6 inches/150cm before transplanting (too fiddly to do for dwarf stuff - too much area with those).

I find trays and guttering too shallow to do that properly - they make the seedlings starve and check before they are big enough to deplete the seed and make it unattractive. No, I recommend deep rectangular bottomless pots made from juice 'brick' cartons (remove long narrow sides) or the straight section from 3L/6pt milk containers (remove top and bottom) - both of these have the same shape and will fit 5 or 6 neatly across a standard gravel tray, making them easy to water and easy to move. The 5 or 6 bricks in each tray will fill 3 or 4 feet of double drill with virtually no root disturbance because the 'pot' goes into the drill where you just lift it off. The only hard part is getting them out of the tray without the soil falling out - you need to put plastic sheet under and up both sides of each brick in a U shape before you put them in the tray, then you can grab the two sides of the sheet to lift the brick out and into the drill, then slide the sheet out. If you use onion bag netting instead you can leave it in the drill (actually it does little or no harm to leave the bottomless pot/brick in there too - but I like them to hand for the next sowing).

I could do some photos if anyone is interested in this simple foolproof method.

Cheers.

[laurieuk]

Our biggest problem is when beans have grown and are almost ready to pick , then the badgers start and they will lay the plants down and ten sit and eat the beans. It does not seem to matter what you do the badgers will get them.

[lottie lou]

Yes plese Vinlander, we would be pleased to see how you do your bricks

[laurieuk]

We live not far from London and find no real problem weather wise, if the plants do get frosted they break at the bottom and you still get an early crop as they have a good root system to get them going. I do sow a later crop in the soring as the weather warms up.

[Digeroo]

My best wizard are now knee high (self sown so hopefully the plant knows best).  I save my own seeds, so this is just some that have dropped back onto the ground sometime in August.  They are not very even so I will thin them out in the spring.   Something unfortunately has sat in the middle of them.  Maybe a deer or a dog.  The next batch have about five leaves both these look very bonny. 
The final batch have mostly been eaten.  Presume early on there are other things for the critters to eat.