Last Saturday it was time to plant out my potatoes and sow my second sowing of broad beans. I’ve chosen Potato ‘Charlotte’ and Broad Bean ‘Kamazyn’ which caught my eye as it boasts unusual reddish pink beans. Rumor has it that the first sowing of potatoes traditionally took place on Good Friday, but then that is a different date every year! It was probably more likely that this was the first date that working men, back in the day the growers at home, had a day off.
My first sowing of a super hardy variety Broad Bean ‘Aquaducle Claudia’ took place last year in October. I protected them under a tunnel of fleece not so much because of the danger of frost but the strong winds and heavy rain that can cause devastation at my exposed allotment site up on a windy ridge. These little beauties are bearing delightful flowers as I write this
I’m trying to get as much vegetables out of the space I have and decided to take W. E. Shewell – Coopers advice and inter crop my potato with broad beans mentioned in his book ‘The Complete Vegetable Grower’.
I planted them in trenches 4 inches deep, rows about a foot apart. I then added a little compost into the trench, then placing the potatoes about 12 inches apart and popping two broad beans (to be thinned out to one later on) between each potato. After that I drew the soil back over the potatoes.
The beautiful broad bean has been around for a very long time it can be dated back as far as neolithic times and was mentioned in Greek and Roman literature. Our staple the potato has its origins in the high Andes and was first heard of in Europe in the 16th century when Cizea de Leon mentioned it after returning from an expedition to what we today now as Columbia. And after a adventures journey through history the potato was reported to be an integral part of a working families main meals in the 19th Century.
I’m fascinated by the history of vegetables and how we interact with plants. So reliable on the amazing ability of seeds to keep until the right conditions are present and to then burst into life – I have no doubt that our helping hand is the smaller miracle out of the two. I believe we often complicate things and most of the time sticking it in the ground, observing and giving a little care here and there does the job.
If all goes well I should be picking broad beans in about six weeks and digging up my potatoes in 14 weeks.
What are your favorite broad bean and potato varieties?
