Grow ‘Wizard’ beans this autumn!
the fruited canes at ground level. If you grow a thorny variety be careful at this point as you could get scratched to pieces, so wear gauntlets at least! I’ll tie the new growth to the fence and keep training them down it; this makes it easier to pick the berries next year.
One of my favourite legumes to grow has to be broad beans. I grow a fantastic organic variety called ‘Super Aquadulce’, starting them off each October. However, this year I’m also going to have a go at growing a lesser-known relative called a field bean. Some of you may grow field beans as a green manure, yet there are varieties that have been developed for culinary uses as well, with ‘Wizard’ being the most magical tasting (pun 100 per cent intended!).
The plants are grown in exactly the same way as broad beans but they’re hardier and can cope with colder weather, more exposed sites and poorer soils, so I think of them as a tough little cousin. The downside is the beans are smaller than broad beans – probably the size of a canned baked bean; however they produce lots of pods and will give you as big a harvest in weight as any broad bean, therefore if you pick them young there’s no need to double pod them and you can serve them like peas. I’m starting some off in root trainers and will leave them on my hardening-off shelves to germinate, while others will be started off directly in a bed to see if they can survive the hungry mice on my plot; newly sown broad beans have been known to be decimated within the first day!
If you grow comfrey you’ll no doubt have been making comfrey ‘tea’ during summer; now’s the