Broad beanVicia faba

The broad bean is undemanding about light and warmth: a sunny or lightly shaded bed suits it, and it particularly likes the heavy clay or loam soils so common in Belgium. What it fears is wind, which flattens its tall stems laden with pods: place it in the shelter of a hedge or wall, or plan a support. It is perfect for opening up a new plot, improves the soil for the next vegetable and gets on well with potatoes. Do not put it back in the same place for three or four years, and keep it away from onions.

The broad bean tolerates heavy soils, but it wants ground loosened deeply for its taproots. Loosen with a broadfork in autumn to twenty-five centimetres, without turning, and work in a shovelful of mature compost per square metre. No nitrogen feed is of any use, as the plant fixes its own nitrogen, but it likes slightly chalky soil: in acidic ground, a handful of wood ash or lime per square metre in autumn helps. For a February sowing, cover the bed with fleece or cardboard a fortnight beforehand so the soil is drained and workable.

Two possible windows in Belgium. The spring sowing, between 15 February and the end of March as soon as the ground is no longer sodden, remains the safest everywhere. The autumn sowing, from 20 October to 15 November, with a hardy variety such as Aguadulce, overwinters without trouble in Flanders, Brabant and Hainaut, and gives a harvest three weeks earlier that beats the black aphids; it is riskier in the Ardennes. Sow five centimetres deep, one seed every ten to fifteen centimetres, in double rows twenty centimetres apart, with sixty centimetres between the pairs.

The broad bean tolerates transplanting surprisingly well when young. If your soil stays sodden in February or if crows and voles are raiding the rows, sow in seven-centimetre pots under cold cover in late January, one seed per pot, and plant out the ten-centimetre plants in late February or early March, without breaking the root ball, at the same spacing as a direct sowing. Firm well around the base. This method is also ideal for filling gaps in a direct-sown row. Drive in the support posts at the ends of the rows at planting, rather than damaging the roots later.

The broad bean does well in a deep container on a cool balcony, provided you choose a dwarf variety such as The Sutton, which stays under fifty centimetres. Allow a thirty-litre container thirty centimetres deep for eight to ten plants, ordinary potting compost without fertiliser, and sow from February, or in November on a sheltered balcony. Water moderately until flowering, then regularly. Place the container out of the wind or run a string around it. The harvest is more of a pleasure than a store, but the scented flowers and the bees that visit them already justify the space.

Sowing in waterlogged ground, where the large seeds rot. Waiting until April, which hands the tender tips to the black aphids right at flowering. Sowing too close or in single rows without support, then finding the stems flattened after a May storm. Feeding with manure or nitrogen fertiliser, to no purpose. Forgetting to pinch out the tips as soon as the first pods appear. Harvesting too late, with floury, thick-skinned beans in the pods. Pulling up the plants at the end instead of cutting them at the neck. Letting the crows dig up the seeds for want of a net in the first two weeks.

Sown in February or November, the broad bean finds all it needs in Belgian rain until April, and its deep roots go looking for water. The only critical period is flowering and pod filling, from mid-April to June: if the spring is dry, water generously once or twice a week then, ten litres per metre of row, at the base. A shortage of water at this stage makes the flowers drop. Do not wet the foliage; rust and botrytis develop on damp leaves. Once harvesting begins, stop watering altogether.

Like all legumes, the broad bean makes its own nitrogen and needs no fertiliser; feeding it would make the growth soft and more attractive to aphids. Mulch from mid-April, when the plants are twenty centimetres tall and the soil has warmed up, with five centimetres of dried grass clippings, leaves or straw: cool soil prolongs flowering and reduces watering in May. After harvesting, cut the stems at ground level and leave the roots in the soil; their nodules release nitrogen for the leeks, cabbages or turnips that follow from July.

When the plants reach twenty centimetres, hoe and earth them up by five centimetres to anchor them. Tall varieties exceed a metre and flop under the weight of the pods: drive in a post every two metres on each side of the row and stretch two strings, at forty and eighty centimetres, to hold the stems. As soon as the first pods form at the bottom, usually in early May, pinch out the top five to ten centimetres of each stem. This concentrates the sap on the pods, brings the harvest forward by ten days and removes the tender part that black aphids colonise first.

The black aphid is the enemy in May: early sowing and pinching out the tips deal with most of it. Add a spray of soft soap diluted to 5 % on the colonies, and let ladybirds and hoverflies do their work, drawn in by a few simple flowers nearby. Against crows and voles, a net over the sowing for the first two weeks. Rust appears at the end of the crop in damp weather as orange pustules: space well, do not wet the leaves, and pull up affected plants after harvest without composting them. Chocolate spots on the foliage are a botrytis encouraged by damp and a lack of potash.

Late October or November: autumn sowing in mild areas. Late January: sowing in pots under cold cover. Mid-February to March: spring sowing in place, crow netting, posts at the row ends. April: earthing up, support strings, mulching, scented flowering. Early May: pinching out the tips as soon as the first pods appear, watching for aphids, watering if the spring is dry. June: harvest from the bottom up, every three or four days. Early July: end of harvest, cutting at the neck, next crop on the enriched bed. August: sorting and drying seed for next year, three days in the freezer against bean weevils.

Harvest from the bottom up, in two or three passes a few days apart. For broad beans to crunch whole, pick the pods at seven or eight centimetres. For the beans, wait until the pod is plump but supple, still green and glossy, with beans the size of a fingernail whose scar is still white or green; black, it signals a floury bean. Snap the pod off with a sharp downward tug. To spread the harvest, combine an autumn sowing with two spring sowings three weeks apart. The last pods, left to dry on the plant, provide next year's seed.