The end of one crop, the start of another.

We spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon harvesting the broad beans & removing the old plants. To make the job easier I snipped each plant at the bottom. All pea & bean roots have nodules attached to their roots. These nodules help fix nitrogen from the soil for the plants, therefore they are a useful addition to leave for the next batch of veg to be planted.

Pretty soon we ended up with a huge pile of plants. We stripped off each useable pod & podded them for the beans. These beans will be frozen for future use.

Towards the end of their life, all of the plants were badly affected by chocolate spot. I don't know if it was the weather, the amount of plants crammed into the space or a combination of both. Also a few of the leaves looked like they had been affected by some sort of rust.

I always sow broad beans straight into the garden. They took an absolute age to come up this year. So much so we thought they had failed & bought plants. Naturally in the weeks after planting the seeded beans came through.

I have tried sowing the beans in the autumn before now but only fve germinated. This year I may sow into pots in the greenhouse, I can then plant these out in the spring. Ideally with having such a small space I could have done with harvesting all the broad beans a couple of weeks ago.

I wish I had taken a photo of before we emptied the bed. After we weeded it Mike rotavated it & we added some chicken manure. It was all mixed in & raked nice & flat. It is now waiting for the next occupents, the brassicas. In all honesty these could have been planted yesterday afternoon. However the white butterflies were out in force yesterday af competeing in their own olympics. I didn't want them depositing any gold or green come to that on my plants. I'm off to get the netting from my dad today. Enjoy your day!

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Comment by Fred Hogg on August 4, 2012 at 9:21: Pea and bean haulm are a useful addition to the base of an onion bed, also.

Comment by Colin Robinson on August 4, 2012 at 22:33: I sow my first lot of broadies in pots in the greenhouse and plant out when they're well developed. If you can give them a bit of cloche protection it helps to get an early crop. I've tried and better tried to overwinter beans and it's a waste of time up here. On the rare occasions when they survived they were no further on than the spring sown ones. Despite the weather and the chocolate spot I've had my best broad bean harvest ever this year.

Comment by Joanne on August 5, 2012 at 8:21: Fred - it was to be my onion bed. The beans took so long, I had to plant my leekd in the salad bed instead.

Colin - I have my broad bean seeds for next year & I have a free packet from a magazine. I shall do a trial run. The free packet will be sown in pots in the greenhouse & the others sown as normal.

Comment by Debbie on August 5, 2012 at 11:32: am very jealous as my broad bean crop has been a complete disaster this year and I usually have loads of them which I love, however other growers around me haven't managed runner beans and I have so swings and roundabouts spring to mind!

Comment by Mr Sparkles on August 6, 2012 at 17:26: I have just pulled up my second crop of broad beans, the third crop is just coming into flower! freezer is already bursting with them and peas and runner beans ! i always sow all my beans in modules in the polytunnel, in fact i am so fed up with poor germination i sow just about everything that way now! never plant broad beans in the autumn, dont see the point, spring sown ones always do better !