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Post by steev on Sept 23, 2015 19:53:40 GMT -5
Do you always shell your dry favas into a devilled-egg plate?
While planting out watermelons last month, I found two lost fava beans and stuck them in with the melons; they're ~1' tall now; I must stop forgetting to buy a couple pounds of bulk-bin favas to plant soon.
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Post by flowerweaver on Sept 23, 2015 20:35:51 GMT -5
LOL steev I photograph all my beans on the deviled egg plate; it's white, shows relative scale, and is easy to transport outside for better lighting while keeping varieties in an order. It certainly has seen more legumes than eggs. |
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Post by steev on Sept 23, 2015 22:30:52 GMT -5
So plant-eggs, rather than poultry-eggs; good enough, though not devilled.
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Post by Al on Oct 11, 2015 6:37:38 GMT -5
My broad beans did well, one 3m row is plenty to keep us going until all the later legumes start cropping, we cannot eat them quick enough so freeze bags full & have dried ones at the end of the season to eat or keep for seed. Unusually I got mine off to an early start from a direct sowing. This generally does not work for me due to mice & rotting of seed in cold soil, but laying clear polythene over the bed for 2-3 weeks before sowing made a huge difference. The soil was warm & dry when I sowed, the plastic stayed in place until these plants were 7-8 cm high. This seems to be get them past the stage when mice like them, plants started like this overtook Autumn sown broad beans.
A 3m row of field beans gave me masses of dried beans to plant as cover crop / green manure over winter, these are basically the same a fava / broad beans but are said to be much hardier. A large part of the plot was drilled with these field beans & they quickly germinated, but unfortunately some critter (probably mice) is digging neat holes as shoots appear & munching away at the beans. I have some beans sown in trays ready to transplant to fill gaps on the plot. But I fear there will be more gap than plants at this rate. Darned cotton picking' varmints..... grrrrrr.......Mutley grumbles etc.......
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Post by richardw on Dec 24, 2015 12:18:27 GMT -5
Here's how tall one of my blocks a NZ heirloom called 'Scotland', noticed when planted in large blocks that the outside is shorter than the middle which must have something to do with wind  |
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Post by flowerweaver on Dec 26, 2015 21:31:18 GMT -5
Wow! Those favas look great richardw. I am lucky if mine reach two feet tall. This is not the right climate for them, but I eat so many of them I figure it is a worthwhile project. |
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Post by richardw on Dec 27, 2015 11:41:49 GMT -5
So have they not grown taller lately with the extra rain you've had flowerweaver |
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Post by steev on Dec 27, 2015 19:19:37 GMT -5
richardw: excellent favas; I will trust that you aren't kneeling; even if I did, I've yet to get any that would reach my waist. Do you eat the tips as greens, or the finger-sized pods as green beans"?
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Post by flowerweaver on Dec 27, 2015 19:36:35 GMT -5
richardw mine are only between 4" and 12" tall right now. The extra rain hasn't helped. But they were fall planted, not spring planted, to get the longer and cooler growing time.
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Post by richardw on Dec 27, 2015 21:55:16 GMT -5
I cant have my autumn planted any taller than yours during flowerweaver winter otherwise the frosts munter them |
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Post by raymondo on Dec 28, 2015 2:41:42 GMT -5
I don't usually sow broadbeans until early spring because the winters tend to knock them about too much. I've just bought a cultivar called Paramo which is supposedly very cold hardy. I'll sow half in autumn to test this out though timing is always a major factor for broadbeans. Too early and they get too big before winter sets in and too late they struggle from the outset.
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Post by steev on Dec 28, 2015 3:16:01 GMT -5
What do you mean "they get too big"?
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Post by richardw on Dec 28, 2015 3:53:05 GMT -5
Too big and they die from frosts, i find about 30cm is max.
But i do like to push the boundaries though by saving seed from the earliest autumn sown possible, that means sowing beds every two weeks, often i will lose all of the first two or three lots depending on what the winter was like, the bed that ends up having one or two survives in may have lost 50+ plants which in the end i dont mind as its all part of that selection for cold tolerances.
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Post by raymondo on Dec 28, 2015 3:57:58 GMT -5
What do you mean "they get too big"? As Richard says, older, larger plants are more susceptible to frost. Not sure why. |
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Post by steev on Dec 28, 2015 4:11:29 GMT -5
Guess having planted mine in November/December, I'll get a tutorial about frost, eh?
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