This is the 5th year that I have grown Broad Beans (Fava), and I have reaped a bumper harvest for very little effort.
This year I sowed about 2/3rds of a 2.4 x 1.2 mtr garden bed, but planted them a lot closer together being about 10 cm apart. The seeds were saved from the previous year, and are the Aquadulce cultivar which are an heirloom variety. To save the seeds, I hang four stalks with the biggest pods up in the carport until the pods are totally dried out and store the dried beans in a sealed salsa jar in my seed box. This method has worked two years in a row now, so I have another four stalks hanging in the carport from today’s harvest.
Anyway, they grew very thick and tall, and I found that I didn’t need to pinch off the tops, or to tie them up. They just grew however they wanted, and even blew over when we had a strong wind a few weeks back, but they still grew fine. To harvest, you just cut them off at ground level leaving the roots in situ, as the roots are littered with nitrogen nodules, and they add this element to the soil as it rots.
Kim, Pam (Kim’s mum), and I sat down and shelled the beans over the period of about an hour. We started off slow….
Then ended up with two big bowls full of beans. The chooks will get the stalks tomorrow, as it got dark as we finished and they were already in bed.
I weighed them as I bagged them up after blanching them for the freezer. You can read about the blanching process at this post titled, “How to Blanch Fresh Produce For Freezing“.
So after not doing too much too them except a little bit of weeding when they were small, we ended up with 2.1 kg (4.6 lbs) of beans ready to freeze. The seeds cost me nothing, and neither did the water! We will use the beans for roast dinners, and for my minestrone soup. A great crop and very tasty.
Broad Beans soon loose their flavour and go brown and bitter due to an enzyme, so this is one of the reasons why you need to blanch them or cook them as soon as you can.
No wonder you never see fresh broad beans at the supermarket, only frozen ones. In this house, they are one of the best spring delicacies!
I harvested just about a kilo last week. As it’s the first time I grew them, I used some Bunnings bought beans. How does the Aquadolce variety differ from regular. They look the same as what I picked in your pictures. I put some woody tree prunings in the ground to help support them. When harvesting I pulled one plant up, saw all the nitrogen nodules, and subsequently cut the tops of the rest. Happy Gardening.
These look so delicious. My mum makes a wonderful broad bean dips with quite a bit of garlic. It goes down well with a beer on a summer afternoon.
So many! We had too many broad beans last year… dried a lot of them (to make ful medames) but obv. not dry enough because they went mouldy, such a waste! This year we have just enough to enjoy eating them fresh, and perhaps even make the dip I’ve seen on veggiegobbler or Linda’s blogs!
I didn’t know they go bitter really quickly. I chopped mine out two days ago and have managed to do 2/3 of them. Looks like I’d better get cracking on the rest today.
Love favas! We won’t be seeing them ’til April here in California. Check out http://www.lidiasitaly.com, she has some great fava bean recipes.
great crop, Im really good at growning broad beens too, unfortunately we all hate them.
I have tried them all different ways we just cannot eat them. So i dont grow them any more.
Hi Gavin, just wondering how you use broad beans with a baked dinner.
Where can you get those seeds from? They look like something I would like to try.