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Broad Beans
Native58
Posts: 46
in Fruit & veg
Hi all
Can anyone tell me the best time to sow broad beans? I tried them last year, sowing in March, and they grew really well until the slugs had a genuine bean feast with them.
I'd really appreciate some advice on how to grow them as well - can they be grown in containers or are they better in the ground? Also, when's the best time to put the seedlings out?
As you can see, I'm totally new to gardening and all advice is very VERY welcome.
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Posts
I sowed mine direct into the veg patch back at the end of October - they have had no protection whatsoever - every one germinated and they are all now around 8-9" tall and healthy as a butcher's dog.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
With broad beans, climbing beans & runner beans I start them in a piece of damp kitchen roll (tissue) on the kitchen shelf. I never let the tissue dry out. Within a week the beans will show roots. I let the roots get to about half an inch long then pot those that have rooted into root trainers and put in the greenhouse. By only potting up those that have rooted I get 100% success rate from the root trainers.
If slugs are a problem then put down pellets, you can use either organic or non organic one's. There are also various other methods you can try, I'm sure othere's will be along to tell you how to deal with slugs.
I once so a programme where a gardener started spraying hosta plants in March with a garlic spray to stop slugs eating them and swore by it.
I went along to my local council recycling centre.
I asked them if they had any guttering handed in,as luck would have it they gave me 5 lengths of plastic guttering.
I sterilised it with Milton filled them level with good compost pressed early broad bean seeds.
I staggered them 30 mm apart wrapped them with fleece and placed them in the greenhouse.
A month later they were well on I drew a channel in the soil 50 mm deep placed the edge of the guttering at the of the trench slid the sprouted beans out and dragged the soil back over them.
I find this method nae bother
Smuddleha
Good afternoon from Ireland. I have never even in this damp and slugridden land had any problems with slugs on broad beans which I thus always grow. This week I left a saucer out for my visiting feral cat who left a little of his meal and the following morning the saucer was full of dead baby slugs. Now I have shallow trays out each with a little jam that had gone alcoholic and water and they are attracting and drowning many tiny slugs each night. Maybe if I catch them young.... My broad bean are set in trays on a wide windowledge indoors.