Gardening

Bean Thinking

About What to Grow This winter?

WORDS LYNDA HALLINAN

Is it possible to fat shame a vegetable? If so, I have some sympathy for the humble broad bean, a legume lumbered with both an unappealing name and a much-maligned reputation for rubbery skins and floury flesh if left too long in either your vegetable plot or pot.

Every autumn when I sow broad beans, I'm reminded of the time when, inspired by my 10-year-old son's enthusiasm for motocross, I bravely bought a bike too, only to come a cropper trying to find comfortable safety gear. "Don't feel bad," the young chap in the motorcycle shop said as he handed me an extra large helmet, "it's just that you have a broad face." Broad beans (Vicia faba) are so named because their fleshy seeds are larger, flatter and wider than, say, kidney beans, black-eyed peas or peas-in-the-pod. But big is actually better as, unlike soy beans, lentils, chickpeas and rice, broad beans are one of the few vegan proteins that can easily be grown in home gardens in sufficient quantities to make your own plant-based ‘meat’ alternatives. What's more, broad beans feed your garden as well as your appetite, sequestering nitrogen in nodules on their roots while preventing soil erosion in heavy rain. It's for this reason that broad beans are prized as a ‘green manure’ or ‘cover crop’ to fill empty garden areas over winter. Even if you have no desire to eat them, sow them now anyway and simply plough the plants come spring to replenish your soil. Sow the large seeds directly where you want them to grow to save time and the hassle of transplanting. Work the soil over a little then simply press the wrinkled seeds in by hand, burying them 5cm deep. Not only are broad beans frost-hardy, the seeds will germinate even when the soil freezes. Broad beans aren't fussy about soil conditions, flourishing in salty, soggy and sandy soils. I find it best to sow in blocks rather than rows, not for any pollination advantage but because it's easier to truss them up together within a supporting fence of stakes and string to prevent the upright plants from falling over when laden with pods. There's no such thing as a dud broad bean; every modern variety has its merits. Exhibition Long Pod has, as you'd expect, showoff pods up to 30cm long; Superaguadulce is a Spaniard with meaty seeds; and Cole's Prolific is reliably prolific. For pots, take your pick from Robin Hood (Kings Seeds), an award-winning dwarf British variety, or the delightfully named Little Leprechaun (Egmont Seeds). The most common complaint about broad beans is that, once they start flowering, they seem to take their sweet time to produce any actual pods. This is not the fault of the bean but of hibernating bees who aren't overly keen on the winter working conditions in most gardens and prefer to hunker down in their hives until the weather warms up. If you're impatient, you could give the flowers a tickle yourself with a small paintbrush (even better, give them a thrill with an electric toothbrush) to ensure that their tender pods are ready to pick for the recipes in the next issue of Nourish. And, while you wait for the bumblebees to get back to business, keep in mind that the tender tips of broad bean plants can also be nipped off and eaten like spinach, resulting in a bonus crop of steamed greens plus bushier, more compact plants.

Grow your own ginger!

Some exotic crops, such as turmeric, saffron and ginger, are worth growing simply for the skite factor. But while saffron bulbs and turmeric tubers are tricky to grow, ginger is notorious for sprouting in a plastic bag in your fridge or fruit bowl. The ‘thumbs’ referred to in recipes are actually rhizomes and, provided they're not allowed to shrivel and dry, these sprout without too much trouble if wrapped in a soggy paper towel and tucked into a resealable plastic bag until their little nubs start to swell. If possible, source fresh ginger from an organic supplier, as imported supermarket ginger may have been sprayed with a growth inhibitor, though rinsing and soaking the rhizome in water for a couple of nights helps overcome this. Once the shoots and roots are visible, gently nestle the rhizome into a container of potting mix and lightly cover with more mix. Keep in a sunny spot, water regularly, and bring indoors for winter. After twelve months, dig and divide the rhizomes; all going well you'll have enough to eat, and to replant.

Lynda Hallinan

Waikato born-and-raised gardening journalist Lynda Hallinan lives a mostly self-sufficient life at Foggydale Farm in the Hunua Ranges, where she grows enough food to satisfy her family, free-range chooks, kunekune pig and thieving pukekos. She has an expansive organic vegetable garden and orchards and is a mad-keen pickler and preserver.