Category Archives: Broad beans

Broad beans tend to be regarded as somehow not quite as good as the borlotti and french beans of high Summer perhaps its because they are easy to grow but for me this simple dip transforms them into a great quick hummus in under 10 Minutes

Ingredients

160g broad beans podded

juice 1/2 small lemon

15 mint leaves

4 tb extra virgin olive oil, plus extra

zest of small lemon

sea salt, to taste

Method

Boil or steam the beans for 3-5 minutes, until tender. Older beans may need longer cooking.

Rinse under cold water with ice cubes, drain in a colander.

Remove outer skins especially with older beans, best way slice one end and gently squeeze bean out

Blitz beans, salt, lemon juice and mint until smooth in a processor or with a hand held stick blender, adding olive oil in a stream until you achieve the consistency you desire.

If you like a coarse texture you can break up the beans with a fork

chop Lemon zest into fine pieces

A good quality, mild tasting oil makes all the difference to the taste

Once smooth, add zest and taste seasoning.cover with little more oil to keep in fridge for a couple of days if you can resist it

Great with seeded crackers and cool beer

Beans, Broad beans, Climbing beans, Dwarf French beans, Fava beans, Fertilizers, Plant foods

Clearing your Bean Bed

July 13, 2016 Mark Abbott-Compton

It might seen an odd thing to film but there are reasons for clearing your Beans and Peas in a particular way as they can still help your garden to be productive after they have finished producing there own crop

Beans, Broad beans, Fava beans

How to grow Broad Beans or Fava Beans

February 28, 2015 Mark Abbott-Compton 5 Comments

Broad Beans are one of the most useful crops we can grow, they fill a gap in the garden over winter when little else is growing and the beans germinate at lower temperatures than even grass starts to grow at in spring. This means that we can plant them as early as February and continue to start them off and plant them right up until May, this method gives us a continuance of cropping.

One of the other great things about growing broad beans is like all legumes they fix nitrogen into the soil and this allows us to increase the soil fertility for a follow-on crop which makes them perfect to sow in a bed before nitrogen hungry summer crops.

You can sow seeds directly into the soil, but my preferred method is to raise them in either root trainers or the centre of cardboard toilet rolls. Continue reading How to grow Broad Beans or Fava Beans →

Beans, Broad beans

Autumn Planting Broad or Fava Beans

March 10, 2014 Mark Abbott-Compton

This video is about Planting Broad beans and the reasons I grow mine in moduals and why there best grown slowly.

The varieties I am growing are Aquadulce Claudia I also grow The Sutton and Crimson flowered Broad bean

LEARN HOW TO GARDEN