Autumn Broad Bean germination

[Marb67]

A couple of weeks ago I soaked the last of my aquadulce in water for a day before planting in compost in the cold greenhouse. So far nothing has come up which I would have thought would have by now. I pulled one up and there was no sign of sprouting and yet when I soak my mung beans, lentils, chick peas etc for edible salad sprouts they more or less start srouting within 2 days.

Should I give the pots a watering as I haven't watered at all due to soaking as I didn't want to get them to rot in a cold, damp climate outsite ?

[Greenleaves]

I never soak mine and i also plant tnem direct, with the colder weather things are slower this time of year....give them a bit longer Marb

[bario1]

I would expect them to take at least 3 weeks to show.

[sparrow100]

Even when I sow them in modules at home for a spring planting they take 3-4 weeks to germinate, and that's in a steady minimum temp of 10C. It will be a lot colder in your greenhouse overnight and will slow germination further.

I wouldn't re-water myself until they show.

[Root66]

I sow mine direct without soaking or ever watering. This year I sowed a month a go today, they showed in about 3 weeks and now about 2 inches.
I wont do anything with them except cover with a fleece if we have a prolonged period of very cold weather.

[poppysocks]

I have never tried these over winter before, I bought some a while ago and forgot all about them, is it too late or should I give a go see what happens, thanks.

[Bigmallly]

Broad Beans can be sown now right through to Spring.

[hamamelis]

Even chitting them inside (which I do because otherwise I tend to lose the whole lot to my ginormous crop of voles), they seem to take at least 4 or so days to start with the first signs of growth, and the ones I chitted then sowed still took nearly a month to appear above ground.

They're in no rush. After all, they ain't gonna be cropping for a while! Better than popping up too soon, being in full bloom in the first week of February then getting smashed to stubs by the weather, as happened to my neighbour last year...

[Marb67]

Well still no show and some of the compost has got very dry.

[veggiechicken]

These are Wizard Field beans in the GH.



The large pot was sown October 3rd. The small modules were sown November 6th. If you look closely, 2 beans are about to emerge - one top right and one middle of bottom row.
You have to keep the soil damp to keep them growing.
If you think about it - you've soaked the seed, which makes it swell, then put it in dry compost which will suck the moisture back out of the bean. I noticed that the beans in damp compost were ahead of the ones in drier compost. However, there's a big difference between damp and wet. Wet compost will make the beans rot when its cold.

[Marb67]

Just don't want them to rot in even damp compost which they have in the past.

[bario1]

Mine sown on 31st October have just started showing. I did plant them deep though, 3-4" in the polytunnel bed. I didn't water when planting or since, the soil is damp enough as it is.

[lmayhow]

Planted my Wizard direct outside 22 October (started a log), watered when planted but not since they have only just stared to show through ground talking under 2cm growth... just to give you another perspective...

[MarkPelican]

I try to grow broadbeans most years with limited success. This year i found an old bag of seeds (bought in 2009) and I decided to grow them as green manure in late October. I just sowed them direct without soaking them. 100% germination, 10 6ft rows!

[dammad49]

After many failures to overwinter broad beans I tried field beans . The seed was amazingly cheap as it was sold as a "green manure". I naively expected smallish plants similar to Sutton. So planted 6" apart.
The result was plants from 7-9 feet tall with a MASSIVE yield of smallish tasty beans, I counted 56 full pods on one plant! Approx 15Kg of beans went into the freezer from about 9 sq.M.
I planted more last September - now about 2" high.