Here at vegetable gardening for beginners we like to help you make the most of your garden and this autumn/winter is a great time to sow something before the spring.
Peas and beans are members of the leguminosae family. These are incredibly useful plants. They provide more protein than any other garden vegetable and is hugely important for the vegetarian or vegan community but most of all, if you are intending to be self sufficient without much meat then you cannot really sustain yourself healthily without leguminosae.
The hugely beneficial trait of the legumes is that they have a nitrogen fixing ability. So if you wish to be organic or don’t want to spend a lot of money on nitrogen based fertisers then rotation planting with legumes is just the ticket.
Here in the U.K. our winter is fast approaching. It is the end of October at the time of writing. We have harvested most of our garden and we can look forward to next spring when most of our planting is done. What can we do right now?
Well, we can sow some winter peas and broadbeans! Great stuff. Some positive action in the garden. You need to cultivate the ground pretty deeply. Hopefully your land will have had some deep muck or compost in it. Remember, peas don’t like acid soil so you need to take action if it is. pH 6.5 is about right. If it is below this, then use lime to balance the soil. A quarter of a pound per square yard is about right.
For the Peas, make broad drills about four inches wide and two inches deep. I use a spade with but probably a better measurement is a hoes width. Then sprinkle the seed evenly so there is an inch or two between seeds. Then rake the earth from each side and bang down firmly with the back of your spade or hoe. Then give the drill a good soaking. Seeds sown October/November will be ready to harvest May/June. I used Unwins Meteor. If you want a succession of peas in the summer then sow fortnighly from March to July. There is nothing like the taste of young peas straight from the pod. I can’t wait!
Broad Beans can stand up to a fierce winter and can get going very early in the spring. It stands pretty strong in the ground and doesn’t need any support. Unlike the tender French and Dwarf Beans, the Broad Bean is hardy and robust. An essential crop for the self sufficient gardener. I am told you can survive on dried broadbeans and potatoes alone! Not that I am going to try it!
Anyway, it is very useful in the cooking pot, easily stored and pretty easy to grow. The soil treatment is similar to that for peas. They like potash. So if you have some wood ash then that would be useful to spread on your intended broad bean patch. Plenty of muck is desirable too.
You need drills about 3 inches deep and about two feet apart. Put the seeds in about 6 inches apart. When they begin to grow it is a good idea to earth them up. Keep them clear of weeds. If you are living in windy conditions then you could put stakes or canes at each end and put a run of string around each row. But often this is not necessary.
Sown now, you should enjoy a broad bean harvest between June and July. Pick them as young as posible for the very best flavour. Watch out for black fly. To deter them you just pinch out the growing tips of the plants when they are in full flower.
Related articles
- The BeanBlogger’s A to Z Guide to Beans (epicurienne.wordpress.com)
- Pigeon with aubergine salad and broad beans (independent.co.uk)
- “It May be Autumn, but it’s Full-Steam Ahead in the Kitchen Garden” Says D. T. Brown (prweb.com)
These are particularly useful for busy people who just want instant results. I have used these in the past and they serve you pretty well. The thing is to plan your vegetable garden in such a way as to know exactly how many beds you want, what dimensions you want them to be and then what your budget is.