Growing Broad Beans, also Fava bean

Vicia faba : Fabaceae / the pea or legume family

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
							P	P

(Best months for growing Broad Beans in USA - Zone 5a regions)

P = Sow seed

Easy to grow. Sow in garden. Sow seed at a depth approximately three times the diameter of the seed. Best planted at soil temperatures between 43°F and 75°F. (Show °C/cm)
Space plants: 6 - 10 inches apart
Harvest in 12-22 weeks. Pick frequently to encourage more pods.
Compatible with (can grow beside): Dill, Potatoes

Your comments and tips

04 Nov 13, Michael (Australia - temperate climate): I've planted my purchased broad beans seeds just before September, almost at the start of our Spring season here in Berwick, Victoria. Australia. I prepared the soil three weeks earlier, just tilled it to kill the grass and then formed several lines of raised beds - as always - for drainage. I planted the seeds not on top of the raised mounts but slightly offside and in a zig-zag pattern between seeds. Now they are around 70cm high and in flower. Broad beans can tolerate a variety of soil condition and full sun. They also love having companions plants. I planted potatoes, radishes, silver beets and beetroots spaced between them and accordingly the tallest goes at the back and the shortest at the front, so that each gets sunlight even in late afternoon. (Edited)
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13 Jul 13, Ron (Australia - temperate climate): How tall do broad bean plants eventually grow to
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22 Jul 13, (Australia - cool/mountain climate): It varies. I had some dwarf ones grow to about a metre, and others to 1.5 metre
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30 Jun 13, ron hutton (Australia - cool/mountain climate): what fertiliser do i use for my broadbeans. potash ?
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03 Aug 13, Gene (Australia - temperate climate): Broad Beans don't need any fertiliser. They produce heaps of nitrogen on their own and can be used as a green fertiliser crop themselves. Some people even grow two or three around their fruit trees in winter for the additional nitrogen they produce. When you're finished with the crop, don't pull them out. Cut them off and leave the roots in the ground to break down. It's ideal to use the plot for growing plants that need high nitrogen in next - such as your leafy greens.
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01 Dec 21, Celeste Archer (Canada - Zone 7b Mild Temperate climate): Though Broad beans like all beans fix their own nitrogen, they still need micro nutrients, as well as phosphorus, and potassium (macro nutrients). I find that adding a dose of micronutrients to the just planted seed soil gets them going faster, I hear that phosphorus works like an alarm clock. I also hit them with any kind of manure I can source; chicken, steer, cattle, sheep, alpaca.. whatever.
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11 Jun 13, Ally Millington (Australia - temperate climate): Growing Broad Beans for the first time - we had a storm during the week and some of the stems/leaves got damaged so I pruned them off and tied them up... will they be ok?
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14 May 13, Paul (Australia - temperate climate): I planted the Broad beans in March the plants are 1 meter high . .I have had the white flowers come on the stems but have not got any bean pods . Am i doing something wrong or do i need to do something else ?
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30 Jun 13, (Australia - temperate climate): You can try fertilising the flowers yourself with a cotton bud or wait till it warms up and the bees will do it for you! It may still be too cold for pods to set also :)
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05 Jun 13, Nicolas Connault (Australia - sub-tropical climate): Same here, Paul, got some white flowers on some of the plants, they've gone now and I can't see any pods. However, an old gardener friend of mine smiled when I told her and she said: "Be patient, Nicolas, be patient, they'll come!". So I'm following her advice :-)
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Update June 01, 2021 - I have lots and lots of fava beans - and am continuing to get more and more. It looks like it will take until the end of the month to bring them all in. So these beans will take about 320 days from planting to full harvest. The haul was great and I am pleased with the overwintering process - very pleased. The beans that I planted in spring are still a ways off from producing beans -- the plants are also much smaller, and I doubt they will put forth as many beans as the favas that were overwintered. The overwintered favas are a mess, with the tarp damage and some favas rocketing up to what looks to be 9 feet, reaching for the sun (they are in a shady location) - but I am pleased. If I had only grown the spring planted favas, I might have given up on favas all together...... but overwintering seems to be the key here in Victoria, British Columbia for a really good crop of beans...... and I would even grow these in the winter for the greens -- they take a bit of getting use to (as did spinach for me when I was a child) -- but once you get use to the greens they are great. The greens taste like fava beans, and not like any other green. I have a few corrections from my first few posts: 1. when I said I lost 1/3 of the plants that were not covered during the really cold week --- it should have said I lost a third of each plant that was not tarped: so if the plant was 9 feet, I had to cut it back to 6feet. The number of plants actually lost was zero. While I only lost a portion of SOME of the tarped plants and when there was a loss it was about 10% of the plant. Also the plants not covered where in a much windier location (think one step and your off a 12 foot drop and in the Pacific Ocean--so lots of wind) -- the plants that were covered where a couple of meters away from the drop off, and there is noticeably less wind there. So whether or not the tarp really makes a difference here is still debatable; the difference may have been wind chill. 2. when I said I used the fava bean leaves as a garnish in my soups over the winter; it was really more akin to a side salad on top of my soup -- big handful of leaves -- sometime harvested based on a branch breaking due to wind. Stems were ground into pesto. Again, I'm very pleased with overwintering my favas; and expect that in the future I will only overwinter rather than spring plant. Winters here are RAINY with lows at about -2 (and extreme lows as cold as -6 last winter), it is also overcast here during the winter with very few sun breaks.... luckily I get a lot of reflection off the water when the sun does peak through. I grew 4 varieties of fava; including the extra early violets; all performed well; the violets are the prettiest if you take them to the dried pod stage; they all taste about the same.

- FaithCeleste Archer

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Growing Broad Beans, also Fava bean

Vicia faba : Fabaceae / the pea or legume family

Your comments and tips

Gardenate

Keep your garden growing - see what to plant right now

Growing Broad Beans, also Fava bean

Vicia faba : Fabaceae / the pea or legume family

Your comments and tips

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