Topic: broadbeans got frosted

[Nora42]

I foolishly bought some broadbean plants from homebase last September and planted them - up till the bad weather they were about a foot high and flowering.

of course now they are bent and blackened and look really on their last legs.
if I chop all the bad foliage will they sprout from the base and grow well again or are they bound for the compost bin?
Nora

[Duke Ellington]

Hello....I know from experienced that broadbeans will grow again from the base if you cut the stem to about four inches. I did this to a few of my early spring sown broadbeans last year as an experiment. They did produce a few more bean pods late summer but not enough to make it worth the effort and the plants seemed exhausted and poorly. If I were you I would sow some more broadbeans now in modules or pots just incase your originals are dead. Try cutting them back just to see what happens - you never know.

Duke

[Flighty]

I would pull them up, compost them and start again. You can sow seeds direct throughout March, April and into May which is what I do. 

[Digeroo]

I would just start again.   Autumn sown ones are a bit of gamble and you seem to have lost.  I sow under bottle cloches from Feb and also have a batch on the window sill which then are hardened off very carefully next to the water butt.

[daveylamp993]

Compost them,roots as well (roots should have nodules on them that will produce nitrogen),sow some more in pots now,i have just planted some Bunyards Exhibition,they will be planted out when approx 6 inches tall,I always seem to do well with them,good luck

[Robert_Brenchley]

It would be interesting to leave them and see, though I'm not hopeful. It'll be a few weeks before you can plant in the open ground, so wait and see.

[bluecar]

I don't grow broad beans, but the majority of people on my site that plant autumn beans just leave them as they say that they will grow back. However, as said, I can not speak from personal experience.

Regards

Bluecar

[irridium]

mine did the same and I've just resown some in the past few days. last year's batch was done this time of year and had about 1-2 week earlier crop then Spring-sown ones, so that's why I did some late Autumn to get an earlier crop.

[laurieuk]

I would just leave them alone,most times they will send upnew growth from the base. The top that is now frosted if left will help protect the new growth.

[chriscross1966]

Leave em in for now but resow... personally I gave up on Autumn sowings, if they come through then you get epic quantities of beans early in the year, but at least half the time they catch it so badly from the weather (one way or another) that they come to nothing except green manure... and Express do so well and are so fast adn the beans are so lovely that I'd rather go with a spring planting of them anyway...

[Garhy]

I foolishly bought some broadbean plants from homebase last September and planted them - up till the bad weather they were about a foot high

Nothing foolish about that at all. the only unwise things was perhaps to plant the beans a little too early in the autumn. You really need them to be,  three or four inches high before the winter weather arrives and then they will not keel over. 

What is foolish, is to dig out what seems frost-dead and replant.  The golden rule of agriculture is never to dig out what you have planted even if it seems dead.
I took the golden rule from my farmer neighbour last year, left the frost dead shoots, planted a few more in between in the spring but hey presto, quite the best crop i got was from the "frost dead" shoots which quite as magically came back to life as soon as some warmer late winter/early spring weather arrived.

The important thing to remember is that Broad beans germinate at a low temperature
so they may be sown late in the calendar year, late October/November, or very early in
the new calendar year, from mid February onwards.

That way you may have a bumper crop every year!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Mine will be going in in a couple of weeks, if the weather improves a bit. As long as the soil doesn't get as waterlogged as last spring, they'll be fine as they can just sit till it warms up enough. I gave up on overwintering due to waterlogging, as it's the one thing they really can't stand.