Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: Digeroo on June 19, 2015, 13:03:55
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The plants are huge some with four or five stems up to chest height. Which are dripping in pods. Though I planted them too close. The flowers were lovely particularly liked the pink ones. I did mean to mark them....
Four small beans to each pod but a huge number of pods per plant. Very frost hardly most came through the winter. Though they do seem to like a bit of wind protection. I had some next to barley and it was enough to keep them snug.
Thanks for the recommendation I am very pleased with them. Good flavour. Though they seem rather prone to blackfly. I have been jetting them with water, but I think they fly back. Washing up liquid has not made much impression.
It would be nice to cross them with a longpod and get the bigger pods, winter hardiness and the huge plants. I do want it all!!!
I got seeds from Tuckers.
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Apparently it's a bad year for blackflies on broadies.
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Wizard are an amazingly good thing for the allotment ... they grow very robustly and don't tend to suffer wind damage that other broad beans do ... and you get a lot of nice little beans on the plants which seem to be able to cope with being planted very close together without a lot of drop off in performance. The thing I like best, though, is that they don't seem to go tough and leathery until the plants are nearly dead which means they are nicer for longer compared to aquadulce and the other popular ones.
And yes I can agree with the fact that it's a very bad year for blackfly!
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Yes, just found far too many of the critters on my broad beans when they were clean last weekend. I usually take the tops off which does seem to help but decided I didn't need to as they were a bit behind ...
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I had a look at mine the other day, and as usual there was only the odd plant with significant blackfly. Wizard is excellent. Field type beans usually seem to be more robust than longpods, and good croppers.
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Picked some for lunch very nice. Some of the plants are up to my nose so a good 5 feet.
I hope to save some of my own seeds, so intend to fill my plot with them overwinter, hope it will keep the weeds at bay and suck up the last remaining nutrients before they are washed out.
I can plant courgettes and squashes next to them and hopefully crop the bean before the courgettes etc need the space. They will hopefully keep the wind off the courgettes as a bonus. Unfortunately they were rather small over winter, so will not keep the wind off the brassicas.
I have never before had a major problem with black fly but this year is an exception. Some plots the beans are totally caked in them so badly that they beans are not forming properly. We are also suffering from ants, and I believe the two are connected, as the ants farm the blackflies and aphids. The normal things, washing up liquid, nettle tea and squishing are not working.
I have however got a bonus come to my rescue and a very tame wren is flitting round helping itself. But there are so many blackflies I need an army of wrens.
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I am fond of Wizard as well, and mine are amazingly tall compared to the broad beans. Last year I used a lot of them as green beans, and left the rest to ripen on the plant for winter storage and seeds - but was startled to find that they had exploded and scattered seed far and wide, so I never got my dried beans and seeds. Did this not happen to other people?
I have bought 100 very cheap plastic sleeve protectors, intending to put them over branches of cherries as they ripen. It has just occurred to me that I also could slide them down from the tops of the field beans to catch the seeds when they explode this year. They are elasticated at each end, so should either catch the beans, or possibly drop them down at the foot of the plant where at least I would be able to find them.
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They sound lovely, I've a packet of seeds I meant to sow this spring but couldn't find them until today!!! Good to hear they do so well and thanks for the heads up Artichoke that the pods shatter/explode.
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What will you do to deal with the exploding seed pods? I was really very disappointed.
I know gorse seed pods for example twist and explode, and I have read that all legumes do this, but in my experience all sorts of beans hang on the plants until you are ready to remove and pod and store them (with some extra drying in airing cupboard etc), but this was the very first time beans have scattered themselves like this in my allotments and gardens over maybe 40 years.
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Some (but not all) of my Wizard did do the thing of dropping seeds - however I wouldn't say that was unique amongst beans ... several other varieties of bean will do the same if left on the plant until completely dried (gigandes especially, along with some pea varieties) - I don't see that as a down side to the variety. Drying the plants or pods after harvesting seems to reduce this phenomenon.
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I am fond of Wizard as well, and mine are amazingly tall compared to the broad beans. Last year I used a lot of them as green beans, and left the rest to ripen on the plant for winter storage and seeds - but was startled to find that they had exploded and scattered seed far and wide, so I never got my dried beans and seeds. Did this not happen to other people?
I have bought 100 very cheap plastic sleeve protectors, intending to put them over branches of cherries as they ripen. It has just occurred to me that I also could slide them down from the tops of the field beans to catch the seeds when they explode this year. They are elasticated at each end, so should either catch the beans, or possibly drop them down at the foot of the plant where at least I would be able to find them.
Artichoke, Im planting this variety and this sounds a good idea. However, Im not visulising this....what do the sleeve protectors look like?
I like the sound of the taste of these....how productive were they?
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I actually like the exploding pods. They know best, and now they come up naturally. The self sown ones seem to do a lot better than the planted ones.
I am interested in your cheap sleeves for the cherry though. I used to use the supermarket plastic bags but they no longer supply them free. Tesco ones were good and mostly clear.