Before you all throw away or compost your broad bean haulms I have a tip from an old gardener for you.
When you prepare your onion patch lay the haulms at the bottom of the trench with a good handful of bonemeal. Then in the top layer of soil mix in some manure and some more bonemeal.
We do this when the first lot of beans for the autumn sown and then use the later beans for the maincrop.
We all have our own ways of preparing our onion beds but this info may help someone
Our champion onion grower, Mammoth onion on here, does exactly that :)
Last year I told a new chap on our site what we did. You should see his b****y onions this year. I couldn't believe it when I saw em. We changed our bed this year cos of white rot so ours were not so good. I will take a pic tomorrow if I go
(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s121/shirlton/Image0079.jpg)
Here are the new chaps(Right Angle Ranch) onions. Radar. I told him its beginners luck. ;D
He certainly won't get onion fly on those!
We warned him about the pests as soon as he took the plot on.poor man has done nothing but make cages for everything. I will say this for him.He is one tidy guy. All his cages are just so.
If you pick the beans before the fully swell, you can eat the haulms as well. Just cut into diamond shaped slices about 2 inches long - a much better use that composting!