The broad beans or some people call the fava bean is a common legume species cultivated almost all over the world although it comes from northern Africa and southwest Asia. Egypt, Italy, Greece and Portugal are among the countries which traditions involve using the broad beans. These beans are essential parts of your diet and can be counted as a hardy plant that you can grow by yourself. All you have to do is to buy sufficient broad beans seeds, suitable gardening tools and not afraid of getting soils on your hands. So here\’s how you can plant your own broad beans.
Things that you need:
- Broad beans seeds
- gardening tools
Method:
- First, prepare the soil in your garden for planting. Make sure that the soil you are going to use is free from weeds, rocks and should be freshly tilled. Broad beans planting can give benefits to the condition of your soil as legumes fix nitrogen in the soil.
- Then, calculate on how much you wish to devote for planting broad beans in your garden. Broad beans can grow fairly as large plants about 2 feet tall, so you might want to make sure that the place is suffice for your plants to grow up. If you want to buy small packet of broad beans, try buying them from a seed catalog. You can purchase seeds in a small 2 oz packet or ½ lb to 1 lb sacks of broad beans. 75 feet of broad beans row can be grown from 1 lb sacks of seeds.
- Sow the broad beans in late April or early may. The bean plants will mature around early summer when the nights are cool. The nature of large lima-like beans is that these broad beans love cold soil.
- To care for the beans plant, protect them from being disturbed by animals. You can choose many fence systems that are available in the market to keep the animals out and are preferable to chemical deterrents. Avoid making your soil over flooded or too dry, just keep them slightly moist. Broad beans are easy-to-care plant, as this is why they thrive in so many places.
- After 65 days, you can harvest the broad beans. The bean\’s pod should be about 7 to 10 inches depending on the variety you chose to plant. Inside each pod, it should contain 6 to 8 light-green seeds. You can freeze these beans for future usage, shelled and dried, cooked or sell them in fresh market.
Additional Reading:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4621977_grow-broad-beans.html
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheatfields/3729190304/
