Posted: Friday 2 March 2012
by Kate Bradbury
Yesterday I marked the first day of the month by visiting the allotment and sowing broad beans – the first seeds I had sown this year.
Yesterday I marked the first day of the month by visiting the allotment and sowing broad beans – the first seeds I had sown this year.
I love broad beans. I would happily eat them with every summer meal, if I could ever grow enough of them. By now I’ve normally got a few rows of stubby plants on the go, following an autumn sowing. But not this year.
Nevermind, I've now sown two rows of ‘Express’, a variety which promise to “out-yield other varieties”. The soil is warm and the sun is shining, so germination should be swift. It normally takes about 100 days between a spring sowing and harvesting, so by my reckoning I’ve got 99 days to go.
I’d never eaten broad beans until I took on my first allotment. To me, this makes them all the more special – they’re not just delicious, they symbolise how wonderful growing your own is, and remind me of how I felt, aged 24, entering the magical world of allotmenteering.
I took my first plot on in September 2005, and was the youngest person on the allotments by about 30 years. I spent the first few weeks clearing brambles, then my dad sent me some broad bean seeds and told me to sow them (“you can’t sow anything else, love”). I didn’t think I’d like them, but did as I was told.
The seeds didn’t germinate immediately, so I dug them up to have a look. Some had developed a radicle (embryonic root), but many appeared to have been eaten by something – bearing the tell-tale shotholes of broad bean seed beetle. I covered them up again and sowed some more. It was November by this point, in Manchester, and I was sowing into heavy clay soil.
Still, most seeds eventually germinated into stubby plants that battled through the ravages of frost and snow. I developed respect for these hardy little beans, which would one day yield a crop I didn't think I'd want to eat.
Spring came, and I planted potatoes into frozen soil, attempted to grow onions from seed, and sowed radishes into a seed tray, to transplant later. Everyone laughed. But I didn’t care; it's good to learn by your mistakes.
By June I had a crop of broad beans and a handful of spuds (which I harvested too soon). I took them home and ate my first allotment meal – tiny new potatoes with broad beans, a sprig of mint and a knob of butter. It tasted great, and felt amazing.
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