Over the next couple of weeks, patrons will begin receiving broad bean shoots in their boxes as part of the salad mix! Similar to our pea shoots, we’ve planted out some broad beans into our ‘table beds’ specifically for harvesting their shoots.
Broad beans – a wonderfully versatile crop
Broad beans are a really wonderful crop – not only are the beans delicious, but the leaves, flowers and even bean pods are also edible. We’re intrigued to try recipes like this: https://www.abelandcole.co.uk/recipes/broad-bean-pod-fritters!
What do broad bean shoots taste like?
We’re really excited to be able to showcase this wonderful crop in all the ways it can be used, so we’ll begin harvesting the leaves and shoots this week to add into our spring salad bags. They taste sweet, nutty and very similar to a broad bean itself, and they’re a great way to get fresh and delicious leaves onto your plate during the ‘hungry gap’.
Our sowing journey
At the nursery, we’ve been sowing Broad Beans (Aquadulce) since November 2025! The earliest sowing we left to ‘overwinter’ in these bean swings we rigged up – to protect them from any potential long-tailed hungry visitors that may also be interested in eating beans – which worked really well!
These early sowings have now been planted out into our beds, which we’ll leave to reach maturity and produce some delicious beans.
Growing in the table beds
The second sowing we did of these broad beans was in December – direct sowing them into our new ‘table beds’ – these were once tables in the nursery, but which have now been filled in with sand (for drainage) and soil, are now being used as veg beds. These plants are the ones we’ll continuously harvest for their leaves, flowers and shoots, and which will eventually produce beans too.
Huge thanks, as always, to our wonderful volunteers who help through each process – getting the beds ready, sowing hundreds of beans and rigging up DIY bean swings!
