I once made wine from broad beans.
It was horrendous. The colour of urine and a taste I imagine of antifreeze. It would get you drunk though.
As a child, I wasn’t so keen on broad beans. Maybe it was the way they were often presented to me on the dinner plate. Boiled, grey and hard as little pebbles. A dollop of salted butter and a good twist of black pepper made them palatable. However, they never excited me and I found them dour.
I grew broad beans on my first allotment. Mainly because they are a traditional allotment garden crop and perfect for beginners as they are so easy to grow. They germinate well and require little ongoing maintenance. This legume is hardy too and varieties such as Aquadulce Claudia are often sown in the autumn to over winter.
They are a vegetable that lacks popularity. A veg for a previous generation. Maybe it’s time we change this perspective and as I salivate over the pages of Nigel Slater’s broad bean recipes in his delicious kitchen garden book, Tender, I plan doing so in our household this year. I hope others will take the same direction.
It’s February and the itch to sow and grow is getting stronger. Spring is on the horizon but it’s still too soon to sow many crops out on the plot. Despite the chill and gloom the month throws in our direction, the light level is a positive change for us to embrace.
Daylight has increased to ten hours and although the temperatures are still low, the light level is a huge benefit to enable sowing some crops to be sown late in the month. But only those suitable for the cooler season. Luckily, broad beans are one of those crops.
The lovely people at Dobies have provided me with the opportunity to grow a modern variety of broad bean called Listra this year. I’m sowing a few seeds this month and will sow again in a few weeks to allow a successional crop of the beans in early summer.
As I did with the sweet peas last month, I’m using toilet roll tubes as pots to sow the broad beans and then keep in the mini greenhouse in the garden. I was surprised how long broad bean roots are, and so the tubes are very useful to facilitate this growth.
Fill the tubes with seed compost and push each bean in. Cover them with a pinch more compost and water in thoroughly.
I’m excited to grow broad beans again. They are an easy crop to grow and I can’t wait to use them in some delicious recipes in the kitchen this year.
What about you? Are broad beans a staple in your kitchen garden or are they something you’ve not grown before? Let me know in the comments below.
Dobies have gifted me the seeds. All words and opinions are my own.
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Sharpen your Spades 
I didn’t know you could sow them do early. Good tip on the loo roll tubes, we’ve saved ours for planting in too but I was going to halve them. Think I’ll leave them full length now. We like to plant them as they are a great size for the kids to handle the seeds.
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I’m loving the toilet roll tubes this year. Yeah, id keep them full length
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Wine?! ICK! I lived in the dorms at the only dry campus in California (which is also the only campus in California that has vineyards and a winery). We were very creative with alcohol. Because I was the only one who did not drink alcohol, and everyone knew it, I was also the one to sneak much of it in.
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ICK is definitely right. Awful. But as I said, would get you tipsy ha.
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I love home grown broad beans that you catch before the skin gets too grey. I found a great Nigel Slater recipe last year. You can eat the pods whole when the beans are young – a bit like mange tout. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2004/apr/04/foodanddrink.shopping . We will do the same again this year
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Nigel has some fantastic recipes for broad beans. I’m loving Tender Vol. 1 at the moment. I’m going use it for a number of crops from the plot this year.
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Abso-flippin-lutely. Broad beans are my absolute favourite vegetable. You can’t get them in the supermarket (or if you do they are a shadow of the home-grown bb) and they are utterly delicious, like the caviar of the veg world, in my eyes. I love Claudia, so will be interested to hear your verdict on this variety. And those photos of your composty fingers made me want to dive out to the greenhouse and sow seeds right now. If that sounds a bit stalkery, I do apologise. It’s the compost, not the fingers.
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I think it’s like to be the same as with peas. You have eat them as soon as you can off the plant. I’m looking forward to growing and eating broad beans this year.
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Among my favourites too. The wine sounds foul. The thing to make is broad bean guacamole – lightly cooked broad beans, olive oil, garlic, cumin – whizz together and buy some wine.
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It really was awful. I went through a phase a few years ago making wine out of a variety of fruit and veg. Some worked. Some did not. That sounds like a fantastic way to eat broad beans. Thanks!
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