Vicia faba
Broad bean
Common names: Fava bean, Faba bean
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Spacing
- 15 cm, rows 45 cm
- Lifespan
- Annual
- Sowing
- Feb–Apr
- Harvest
- Jun–Jul
- Hardiness
- Cold damage below −6 °C
- Water need
- Medium
Photo: Stefan.lefnaer · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
Description
The broad bean is one of the oldest cultivated plants in Europe and is remarkably cold‑tolerant, early sowing from February produces thick, buttery seeds by June. It strongly fixes nitrogen and is an excellent green manure. Its flowers emit a sweet fragrance and attract bees.
Care instructions
Sow the large seeds early, from February to April, about 5 cm deep directly in the bed; they germinate at temperatures just a few degrees above freezing. Slightly mound the rows and remove suckers if attacked by the black bean aphid. Water evenly during flowering and harvest the pods when the seeds are clearly visible but the pod still has a bright eye.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
SowingFeb–Apr
HarvestJun–Jul
Germination
- Soil temperature
- from 3 °C, ideally 10 °C
- Days to sprout
- 10 to 21 days
- Light
- Sprouts in light or dark
- Sowing depth
- 5 cm
- How to start
- Sow straight into the bed
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
loamy, humus-rich, well-drained, nutrient-rich
Give the broad bean a medium-heavy, deep, humus-rich soil with good water-holding capacity; loamy to sandy-loamy soils are ideal. Avoid waterlogging, and if the pH is below 6.5, lime before sowing so that the nodule bacteria can fix their nitrogen effectively.
Through their nodule bacteria, legumes fix nitrogen and are an ideal preceding crop for heavy feeders. They themselves need a break of about 4 years in the same place.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Feb–Mar
Before sowing in February/March, work in mature compost shallowly. You do not need separate nitrogen feeding, since the plant supplies itself with atmospheric nitrogen through its root nodules. On very lean soils you can work in a little horn shavings as well, to bridge the start-up phase before the nodules form.
Overwintering
The broad bean is annual: after harvest it dies, so you do not overwinter a plant but only store seed dry and cool for the next season. Optionally you can sow directly in the bed in October/November. The young plants overwinter and tolerate light frost down to about -5 °C; in hard frost, cover them with brushwood or leaves.
Propagation
Methods
- From seed
The broad bean is propagated exclusively from seed, by direct sowing or by starting it indoors. You can sow directly outdoors from mid-February, as soon as the soil is no longer frozen deep and has dried out a little; the plants tolerate frosts down to about -5 °C and need no warmth to germinate. Push the large seeds in 5 to 8 cm deep, with rows 40 to 50 cm apart and 10 to 20 cm between plants in the row. Alternatively, start them from the end of January in unheated rooms or a cool greenhouse and plant the young plants out after 3 to 4 weeks. An autumn sowing in October is also possible: the plants overwinter and give a very early harvest the following spring. For your own seed, choose at least 10 to 15 strong, healthy plants, preferably take the seeds from the pods set first and let the pods dry out completely before you shell out the beans. Then dry the seed thoroughly afterwards, or its viability suffers. The broad bean is heavily visited by insects and is predominantly cross-pollinated. If the variety is to stay true, keep about 150 m between different varieties.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
cabbage family (Brassicaceae)
particularly well establishedLeguminous plants collect nitrogen in the soil, from which Brassicaceae benefit as heavy feeders.
For example White cabbageKohlrabiRadishKalebroccolicauliflower and 41 more species in the catalogue
Source: classic companion planting (DACH-Gartenpraxis)
carrot family (Apiaceae)
Peas and beans provide carrot and celery with nitrogen and grow as shallow-rooted plants without competition next to each other.
For example CeleriacDillParsleyFlorence fennelCorianderCelery (Stalk Celery) and 20 more species in the catalogue
Source: classic companion planting (DACH-Gartenpraxis)
Rather not
amaryllis family (Amaryllidaceae)
particularly well establishedAllium species inhibit the nitrogen‑fixing rhizobia of legumes through their root exudates, which slows their growth.
For example ChivesWild daffodilRocamboleElephant garlicRed OnionShallot and 9 more species in the catalogue
Source: basic crop‑rotation rule
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
For your garden
Grow Broad bean yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
Free, no time limit
Varieties
4 varieties‘Aquadulce’
You can plant ‚Aquadulce’ in mild climates as early as October or November, and it will give you the first harvests especially early in May.
‘Dreifache Weiße’
You will find ‚Dreifache Weiße’, a traditional, white‑seeded variety with large, flat seeds and very wide pods.
‘Hangdown Grünkernig’
A robust heirloom variety that owes its name to the downward hanging pods.
‘Witkiem Manita’
One of the most reliable early varieties for the home garden: Witkiem Manita grows away briskly after sowing and delivers the first fat pods as early as June.
Notes from real gardens
What other gardeners have written down about this variety, anonymous and voluntary.
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From the magazine
Sowing Broad Beans Early: the head start that outruns aphids
Broad beans are the frost-hardy early birds of the bed. Sow from CW 8 and you harvest early and outgrow the black bean aphid. Here is how sowing, care and harvest work.
Bean variety: bush, pole, runner, broad and lima at a glance
Five bean types, five roles in the garden and the kitchen. Which bean goes in when, which one climbs, why they feed the soil and why you must never eat one raw.