Broad bean Masterpiece Green Longpod

The Masterpiece Green Longpod Broad Bean is one of the best varieties with green grains. It produces long pods that can contain up to 7 beans. It is a bean with remarkable taste quality, ideal for freezing. Sow from February to April for harvesting from June to August.

The Broad Bean is a legume that belongs to the large family of Fabaceae, like the bean and the pea. After falling slightly out of favor, it seems to be making a comeback in vegetable gardens. It is a vegetable worth rediscovering as its cultivation is easy.

Originally from Asia and the Middle East, the Broad Bean is widely cultivated around the world, both for its flavor and its nutritional qualities. Rich in energy nutrients, it is considered a starchy food. There are many varieties of Broad Beans, with varying pod sizes and grain colors: some are white, others are more brown.

The Broad Bean can be consumed both raw and cooked. However, it is a delicacy that requires some preparation time for fresh beans: you will need to shell them first and then remove the second skin from each bean.

To enjoy them raw with a pinch of salt, like radishes, you will harvest them when they are young and tender, and you will be spared the second peeling. Generally, 1 kg of unshelled Broad Beans yields 250 g of peeled beans.

Cultivating Broad Beans is easy, and if your soil is rather poor, clayey, and moist, for once, you can rejoice! Broad Beans are made for you. Indeed, like all legumes, they are not demanding. And they thrive best in heavy and very fresh soils. They are also not very frost-sensitive and can be sown as early as February in most parts of France.

Harvest: Harvesting Broad Beans simply involves picking pods at different stages of ripeness, depending on how you want to consume them: raw, cooked, or dried.

Storage: Fresh Broad Beans can be stored for a few days in the vegetable compartment of your refrigerator. You can also dry them and store them at room temperature. Broad Beans freeze very well too.

Gardener's tip: Broad Beans are the favorite vegetable of black aphids. It is rare for them not to be attacked by a colony that usually descends massively on a whole row. To dislodge them without resorting to insecticides, you can spray them with water mixed with black soap (2 tablespoons per liter).

This year, in our garden, having read that their presence could promote fruiting, we let them be. Quickly, we noticed the presence of ladybirds. They weren't numerous enough, admittedly, but the harvest was quite satisfactory, even if, it must be admitted, the pods were black and rather sticky! In the end, we enjoyed them, and we believe that the ladybirds are now more numerous in the garden because there is not a single aphid on our Nasturtiums.