Broad beans are one of the unsung beauties of the kitchen garden. They don’t grace the lists of edible plants that are pretty enough to grow in your flower borders, but I’m not sure why.
For one thing, they are very pretty. And they have a beautiful scent, although you have to be pretty close to smell it.
They flower early in the year, giving the bees something to eat when there’s not much around – and brightening the place up while other plants are still sleeping – and then give you a harvest of protein-rich beans during the ‘hungry gap’ when not much else is available. And the flowers themselves are edible, too.
If you want to grow your own then broad beans are usually sown in the autumn, or early spring. The normal varieties are beautiful in their own right, but if you want something even more spectacular then see if you can hunt down seeds of the heritage crimson flowered variety.
catalangardener wrote:
...on Wed, Jun 3 '09 (980 days ago)