Legumes

These members of the pea family are great assets to the vegetable garden as they all fix nitrogen into the soil.  The plants are also excellent green manures that can be added back into the garden through composting them.  With similar flower and pod shapes we distinguish the edible members as peas and beans.

Beans come in various shapes and forms.  All beans should be cooked before eaten as some people have reactions to the chemicals present in them raw.   The earliest to plant are the Fava or Broadbean which are frost tolerant, these will be available in 9cm pots in March.  They are a bush type that can reach 1M in height, some staking is required. Popular in Europe these beans are shelled fresh and the pale green seeds have a wonderful buttery texture when cooked.  

The next most common type are the wax and runner beans which are the classic eating "green" bean. They come in various colours from pale icy green pods to purple pods, the lighter coloured ones being more tender to eat.  They come in both a bush type reaching only 60cm in height, most not needing any staking, to the pole bean requiring trellising or poles at least 2M in height.  These will be available in 9cm pots in early May for harvesting mid summer.  Ideal to plant with heavy feeders like Corn.

The heat loving beans are the Edamame (Soy), Hyacinth and Lima beans. These will be available late May to early June in 11cm pots.  These all should be planted in a sunny, warm location for best and early production of pods.

Peas grow best in cool climates as intense heat tends to burn or slow the plants down.  We will be offering our peas in 606 containers (6 plants per pot/insert) in April so they can mature during the cooler part of the summer.  They come in different eating forms; sugar snap where you eat the pod and seeds or just the seeds as they swell up like shelling types; snow peas with flat pods that are great for stir fries; shelling peas where the seed is removed from the pod to be eaten.  All peas are wonderful raw straight from the vine and in salads.  All varieties are vine like, the heirloom varieties taller than the modern varieties.  Therefore they need staking with netting as their tendrils will hold fast to the netting. 

Since beans and peas produce some of their own fertilizer they are not in need of really fertile soils or regular fertilizing.  The soils should be moisture retentive but well drained and the plants should be placed in a sunny spot.