It's around about now that I start to think that Winter Is Officially Over, and I should start eating lovely things like baby leaf salad, asparagus tips, and baby broad beans bursting from the pods. Unfortunately, as you can see from this my broad beans are far from bursting forth a leaf, let alone a pod.
So I will have quite a wait for my primavera salad, unless it comes courtesy of Waitrose. I always germinate broad beans, (and most other things too) indoors, to help protect them from the wildlife (mice mostly). If you can pick a favourable day to transplant already germinated seeds, I think it gets them off to a really good start. I just keep them in the greenhouse, or anywhere indoors would do fine, in a tray of compost or modules, and as soon as they show signs of germination I tip them gently out
and transplant them to the open ground, if conditions are favourable. Do be careful not to damage the newly emerged root, - the white pointy thing is a root so should be pointing downwards, the shoot comes from the same place a few days later but in an upward direction, obviously.Broad beans are pretty hardy but if conditions are not favourable for transplanting, if it's freezing or waterlogged, you can certainly grow them on into proper little plants, but for this you will need to have them in 3 inch pots in a good light position. And I would want to get them out into the ground as soon as you reasonably can.
Happy Spring!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I got a look at the soil in your bed. I have been sifting dirt to get the rocks out of it and the dirt is now like flour. I'm thinking maybe I ought to put some regular dirt back in the mix.
Thanks Callie - what you need is some of that garden soil they have on the gardening tv programmes that looks like a bag of potting compost! Keep up the good work.
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