broad bean varieties

[Granny]

I've got Aquadulce overwintering happily. Can anyone recommend varieties for Spring sowing? I have just grown Sutton Dwarf in the past - because I bought an enormous bag of beans and only finished them off last year!
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Granny

[John]

My favourites are 'Witkiem Manita' which gives a white bean and 'Jubilee Hysor' which forms a light green bean. Both are very prolific and have excellent flavour.

John

[Monika]

I agree with John about 'Witkiem Manita' and we have also grown 'Masterpiece Green Longpod', not bad if you want a very long bean, but 'Witkiem Manita' beats it for taste and yield.

[Johnboy]

Hi Monika,
Taste is a very personal thing. I have always grown Masterpiece Green Longpod as my main crop and have always grown another variety alongside them. I tried Witkiem for two years from two different seed sources and didn't get on with them at all. I found that the yield from a given plot was way down on that of MGL and for taste I prefer the MGL.
Masterpiece Green Longpod average around eight beans per pod and Witkiem for me was as low as three and many only a single bean although they produce a mass of pods. This is why I changed my seed source but it made no difference.
This year I am growing the old Scarlet Flowered variety alongside and see how they fair by comparison.
JB.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've grown Aquadulce for a heavy yield, but much prefer the flavour or the Crimson Flowered. They only have about 4 beans per pod but keep their lovely green colour and taste delicious. They also look very pretty. I got the seeds from Heritage Seed Library a few years ago.

I'm going to make note of the ones you've mentioned and will try them next year for a change.

[CityGardener]

I can recommend "express". I grew them last year. I don't think they were ready much earlier than other varieties but they cropped really well and tasted pretty good.

[Granny]

Thanks to all for suggestions. I'll try them and attempt to keep notes a bit better than usual!
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Granny

[Mike Vogel]

I've grown Witkiem Manita too. They have a good sweet flavour, especially when picked quite young. They got blackened rather quickly this year, but I'd grown them from saved seed and maybe i didn't save it properly.

However, though they are a spring-sown variety, I sow all mine in autumn, for 3 reasons. One is time: I'm too busy in March/April. Next is thhe fact that I want to clear them in June to make way for brassicas. Thirdly, I don't like the blackfly which infests spring-sown broad beans. There aren't enough ladybirds on the allotment to deal with them.

mike

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Mike, i hope these hard frosts have not caught your Broad Beans, it certainly was a sharp one round this way.

[Johnboy]

Hi OH,
Certainly decidedly chilly around here this morning too! My weather station records -12C which is 10.4F
which means 21.6 degrees of frost! This means that many plants here are in jeopardy, plants that we always take for hardy.
Now to Broad Beans.
Hi Mike,
Somehow I don't get Blackfly on my spring sown
Masterpiece Green Longpod, in fact I very seldom get any Blackfly at all, it maybe because of my elevation at 500ft. I wonder if Geoff gets them at 600ft?
Certainly I cannot grow Aquadluce here as they always perish and I do not plant out my MGL until the end of March or later depending on conditions prevailing. I do not have the same constraints on land so my MGL are always cut to within 4" of the ground and the regrow and I get a nice little picking later on in the year. Small but very much appreciated. There will never be enough Ladybirds as there never was or could be. Think about that one!
JB.

[oldherbaceous]

Goodness Johnboy that was a lot colder there than here then, they are on about the same again tonight.
But it is lovely here now, the frost is lifting very quickly.

[Geoff]

I don't get aphids on MGL either. Sown in root trainers in heated greenhouse today (scar down, thanks JB), will harden off in cold greenhouse and plant out about 10th April with a bit of protection to start with.
Incidentally I rarely get any brassica aphid problems either though I did have some large grey/purplish ones on the tips of the black currants last year.
Been frosty here too but only about -6. I think I realized last week we have a micro climate up here, set off to Lancaster at 4.5 according to the car and after going downhill for 5 miles it was zero, another 5 miles into the Lune valley (not that much above sea level) it was -3 and still -2 in Lancaster.

[DonW]

Good evening I am new to this forum.

I grow Crimson Flowered a Heritage variety also good taste, which inpite of being a "spring" one has over wintered here successfully for the past 4 years, currently 4inches high but fleece covered.

For spring sowing Red Epicure whose beans stay red on cooking good flavour to will be sowing in cold greenhouse later this week.

Don
Southport

[Essexboy]

I have always had good results with Bunyards exibition, quite an old variety but always seems to work on my ground. Have given up on autumn sown broad beans as they always seem to catch each other up anyway!

[Mike Vogel]

My broad beans have not been troubled by the frosts, OH, even the most recent ones, and look very healthy. I've got a few in the greenhouse ready to plug any gaps in the rows, but I think i'll simply be creating a new row from them.

Bedford is supposed to have a northern rather than southern climate in winter, and Cardington nearby is a well-known "frost hollow". But we catch up once the weather warms up. You may be right about the blackfly, JB. Here we are low down, almost at sea level, so maybe that explains our susceptibility.

mike