Broad Beans

I think smaller tastes better ... but if you have very few plants you will struggle to get a meal if you pick at the "smaller" stage.

 

Can I pick and freeze my beans? If so do I need to blanch first?I need them out the way soon as I need to get my cabbage and cauliflower in, but still have loads of beans on them.

Rusty

 

I harvested a few saturday for tea and they were really tiny, like the size of peas. They tasted really bitter/sour (?) and me and Mr Jane agreed never to grow them again. Ripped up the crops yesterday and am preparing to plant some leeks there instead today.

 

Sounds like they were on the small side for harvesting. I find when they get to the size of the seed that you planted they get chewy, but a bit smaller than that and they are very sweet. Not picked them pea-size or smaller, but they definitely should not have been bitter - hope you weren't too hasty in pulling them out ...

 

Not considered it before, but perhaps worth storing the tray(s) in the freezer before "loading" them, so that they are already cold? Or maybe metal cools down so fast that that is overkill.

You can get Liquid Nitrogen by mail order of course ...

 

Spotted a bit of an oddity today in amongst my Aquadulce Claudia autumn sown broad beans, which are flowering quite nicely at present.
One plant has blue flowers on it, while all the others are the usual black and white.



Never seen this before. Do some broad bean varieties have blue flowers?

 

I'm growing broad beans for the first time this year and one of mine (variety Masterpiece I think) also has blue flowers, though not quite as prominently blue as yours. Perhaps save seed from it if you like it.

Got a nasty shock opening this thread, as I didn't see that it was started in 2013. I was furious that my broad beans were disappointing late, compared to the magnificent pods on the first page!

 

My December sown beans are almost ready for conventional harvest.
I follow my father's advice and once they start flowering pinch out the tops. These are delicious cooked as you would spinach. They cook down in the same way and are good under an egg. Lovely bean flavored spinach lol.
This pinching makes the plants much less attractive to greenfly.
I've sown quite a large patch this year, so have started eating the crop by picking finger size pods to cook and eat whole, as you would French beans, leaving plenty to mature. Yummy with butter/olive oil and garlic

 

That's a really attractive flower Trunky. is it trying to be crimson, but hasn't quite made it? There are certainly crimson flowered broad beans. What about yours @Cinnamon
Might be worth noting how the beans turn out/contacting the seed company?