Broad beans...really worth it?

This year I planted broad beans for the first time. I never tasted fresh ones and was curious. It is a fairly easy plant to grow and once it starts to bear beans it does not stop. Taking into consideration my lazy way of gardening this is a perfect plant. It grew despite only getting water from rain and I never fertilized it. I just planted it in composted soil around June 2014 and left it to its own devices. As it is reaching the end of its season; (summer is starting here in the Southern Hemisphere) I am pondering whether I will plant it again next season. I have limited space and only need to plant vegetables that we will actually eat and that produce lots. We harvested the broad beans about 3 or 4 times, enough for 2 adults. It tastes amazing, but the effort that goes into shelling the beans versus the amount of beans one gets, make me wonder if it is worth it. My family likes the beans and it does taste great, so if I have space I will plant it, but I will definitely not go out of my way to ensure they are in my garden.

The pictures above shows the amount of beans you get vs the number of pods. Those pods are huge but only holds about 4 beans.

Garden diary - 13 May 2011

13 May, 2011

I went away for a few days and left no one at home; it was very hot and a few of my seedlings just didn’t make it without water. These were the Brussels sprouts and some of the broccoli seedlings I planted. The rest is busy recovering after watering them.

The granadilla tree is starting to grow quite fast and I placed a tripod over it since I don’t have a trellis on which it can grow up against.
This past week and last week, it has been raining for a few days this side of the equator. This means I could not go out in the garden. Yesterday the rain let up a bit and I went to check how everything doing, the pea plants are down and some of the broccoli have yellowing leaves at the bottom. I read that this might be caused by the bottom 2 seedlings needing to die off so that the plant grows or by over watering. The beetroot seedlings are only a few left that is still standing. I think I will need to plant more cauliflower and Broccoli if I want to harvest more. I am just not sure if it is too late now to plant them now .

Corn and butternut harvest

On Saturday, 05/03/2011, I harvested corn and a butternut. It was only one butternut because the other one was attacked by pests and I have one plant. There is still one flower on the plant, but I am not sure if it will still produce another butternut.

The corn was just delicious and 2 of them I almost left too late on the plant and some of the kernels started going brown.

I transplanted my first batch of cauliflower seedlings and planted brussels sprouts, jalapeno peppers and some more cauliflower.