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(Best months for planting Broad beans in New Zealand - cool/mountain regions)

• Easy to grow.
• Harvest in 90-160 days
• Sow in garden. Sow seed at a depth approximately three times the diameter of the seed.
• Best planted at soil temperatures between 6°C and 24°C.
• Space plants: 15-25cm

It is a rigid, erect plant 0.5-1.7 m tall, with stout stems with a square cross-section. The leaves are 10-25 cm long, pinnate with 2-7 leaflets, and of a distinct glaucous grey-green color. Harvest 90 - 160 days depending on how cold the weather is.

In windy areas it is best to provide some support with posts and string, otherwise the plants will fall across each other. Pick the tops out once beans start setting to prevent blackfly.

Culinary hints - cooking and eating Broad beans

The fresh beans are eaten steamed or boiled. As the beans mature it is better to remove their tough outer skins after cooking.
The leafy top shoots of the adult plants can be picked and steamed after flowering.
Small beans can be eaten whole in the pods.
Broad beans will freeze well. Remove from pods and blanch.

Your comments and tips

18 Oct 10 Verena (New Zealand - temperate climate)

broad beans need pollinating by bumblebees. They are the only insect strong enough to get into the flower

06 Dec 10 Dave (New Zealand - cool/mountain climate)

I plant Exibition long pod in January after digging my new potatoes and have a good crop of beans for easter.Watch for grey aphids soon dispensed with diluted sunlight soap solution

01 Apr 11 Rebecca (New Zealand - temperate climate)

HELP! I sowed my broad beans a few weeks ago and they have done well, nice young plants about 30cm high and have already just started to flower. However I notice a black rot beginning at the soil line affecting some of my plants. What is it??? Can I treat it somehow? The plants that have it are falling over and dying. Some also show signs of black spots moving up the main stem. THe infected ones are yellowing and dying. Also some blackening of leaves. I am so disappointed I love broad beans. Was I watering too much?

29 Apr 11 Paul Bean (New Zealand - sub-tropical climate)

You could try a tip that worked very well for me on runner beans. Water the plants every morning with a can of water with a tablespoon of sugar dissolved in it, after a week the runner beans set amazingly. They had been covered in profuse flowers before hand and wouldn't set during a drought, in spite of lots of watering.

01 May 11 Simon (New Zealand - temperate climate)

Bumblebee pollinantion: A local entomologist tells me that there are two local (Christchurch) species of bumblebee - short tongued bb and long tongued bb with the former appearing in the Spring about three to four weeks before the long tongued species - hence early flowers are pierced at the flower base for nectar and are not polinated. The long tongued bumblebee can penetrate the flower and does not need to pierce the flower base and so does a good job of pollination.

03 Jun 11 Ann (New Zealand - cool/mountain climate)

Do broad beans have many disease or bug problems

29 Aug 11 Michael (New Zealand - sub-tropical climate)

Although I am living and gardening in the Australian sub-tropics I'm a kiwi gardener with a broad bean problem and am hoping someone might be able to help. My plants have grown vigorously and strong over the past 2-3 months, flowering from an early stage and still doing so profusely. However I'm not getting any fruit set at all despite regularly seeing domestic honey-bees hanging about. Any tips?

04 Sep 11 debbie (New Zealand - cool/mountain climate)

hi i have lovely big broadbean plants in my tunnel house,lots of flowers but no bees.When do the bees come out of hybernating.I have put lavender plants inside and out side to attract the bees thanks

26 Sep 11 Jill (New Zealand - sub-tropical climate)

I have always planted my broad beans in Sept or October and they have been great. Fruiting throughout late Dec/early January. Have just started this years crop with liberal amount of horse manure which has been left for 6 months or so and now mixed in with the other soil....no idea if the beans will like it or not???

04 Nov 11 Dianne (New Zealand - sub-tropical climate)

Over night Something has eaten the flowers on my broad beans. Can any one help?