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 Aug 18, Donna (Australia - sub-tropical climate): thanks - we have no yard so grow bags are a good alternative to having the luxury of a patch of dirt I guess.
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09 Sep 18, Angela (Australia - temperate climate): I haven’t had a lot of luck with the grow bags. My most successful containers have been the Greensmart pots. More expensive than grow bags but I have harvested lots of cherry tomatoes, eggplant, silverbeet, basil from them. They need watering less often than conventional pots.
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17 Jul 18, John. Spencer (Australia - temperate climate): I have a good crop of broad beans growing in big pots. They are approx 10--15 weeks old & flowering , however on beans are forming. I have noticed no bees are around. I am in perth. John
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19 Jul 18, Liz (New Zealand - temperate climate): Broad beans are usually slow to start setting fruit. If you check every few days, you will probably find some beans appearing. Broad beans have two methods of pollination,. Their primary method is self-pollination, in other words they do not need insects to produce a crop. However, they can also be pollinated by insect activity and will produce the best crop when pollinated using both methods. More here : www.gardenfocused.co.uk/vegetable/broad-beans.php
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18 Jul 18, Mike (Australia - temperate climate): i have never grown them. Normal beans when they flower have a little bean under the flower - this grows into the bean. Go on the internet and google growing BB in Perth.
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09 May 18, KB (Australia - temperate climate): I have a smallish corner raised garden behind the woodshed where I have grown Pumpkins for the past two seasons and although my pumpkin crops have been magnificent (Queensland Blues) in my main Vegetable garden areas with several weighing in at over 5kg but this particular corner garden has only ever provided one average sized pumpkin and that was this past season. I have cleaned much of the worm droppings from my kitchen waste worm farm made two rows of troughs about 10 cm from the west facing fence and have added a line of the worm castings into the troughs and yesterday planted a packet of Broad Bean seeds into the troughs. cover and then watered these now raised mounds containing the seed. Having already provided climbing type stakes at the rear of the raised beds and will string tie the bean s to these supports when it is time to do so. The Season before last I had a bountiful supply of Broad Beans cropping for several weeks and was able to provide my non-gardening neighbours with bags full almost every week....the only problem I encountered were the mites which I think were the Rose garden pests that had swarmed all over the Broad Bean tops....so now asking if these little mites come and attack this latest crop what is the best remedy bearing in mind that I do not use chemical sprays as most of my garden veggies are edible types such as herbs, silverbeet and other similar foods, Cheers KB
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11 May 18, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate): Check to see if the small raised bed behind the woodshed is receive much sun. Most time limited sun - not much of a crop. Look on the internet for an organic spray for your broad beans.
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07 Mar 18, Leona Dubois (Canada - Zone 2b Sub-Arctic climate): Hi there I am not sure what zone to really plant for as environment Canada changed the zone last year to zone 3b from zone 2b..we have over 2 feet of snow still and it was -15C when I got up this morning...what would you suggest?
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24 Oct 17, Mitchell Calcott (New Zealand - temperate climate): What are some innovative ways of selling them?
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08 Jan 17, Liz (Australia - temperate climate): I have planted dwarf beans in Perth from March - May with success.
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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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