Gardeners' World: Monty provides tips on planting broad beans
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Monty Don is a horticulturist and host of BBC’s Gardeners’ World. The presenter often shares his gardening tips and tricks with viewers, including how to plant vegetables.
Gardeners’ World has recommended tasks for gardeners to do this weekend.
One of them is to grow broad beans, ready for the first batch to appear next May.
On Twitter, Gardeners’ World wrote: “It’s time to get your first batch of broad beans on the go.
“Sown direct or in individual pots, they’ll be up in a matter of days.”
Fortunately, Monty Don has previously shared his top tips on how to sow broad beans now.
Broad beans are large, and so they are very easy to sow and perfect for beginner gardeners.
In a video clip from an earlier episode of Gardeners’ World, Monty explained that you can plant broad beans inside, to plant outdoors later, or outside.
If it’s wet underfoot, it’s a good idea to plant them indoors first.
Monty said it had been very wet in Longmeadow, therefore, he had decided to sow his beans indoors.
He continued: “They grow very well in pots and then can be planted out as young plants as late as next March or April.”
Monty showed viewers how to sow seeds of a broad bean variety called Crimson Flowered.
“They’re beautiful plants. These lovely cherry magenta coloured flowers,” he said.
“And the beans are good to eat.”
Monty added: “You just let the plant get mature, and it looks as though it’s dying, and then you harvest the brown pods.
“And inside, are the slightly dried up beans, which of course is what you want.
“You need to dry them a little bit more.”
To do this, Monty simply spread them out in a seed tray and left them for one or two weeks.
He said: “You know they’re ready when – if you press them with your fingernail – there’s no give.”
Monty explained gardeners can leave these seeds to sow into the ground next spring, but the horticulturist said, “I want to get ahead”.
He went on to demonstrate how to sow the seeds in a pot, saying: “Use a potting compost rather than a seed mix because these might well stay in the pot for nearly six months, so they need a little bit of nutrition.
“Then just plant one seed per pot.”
Monty pushed a seed into each pot’s soil, saying that “in many ways, growing them in pots is a lot easier”, because mice “love” broad bean seeds and are susceptible to eating them if grown outside.
Monty then put his pots in a cold frame, allowing his plants to be sheltered from the wind but also exposed to the fresh air.
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