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.

Growing vegetables for Winter

Last year I made the horrible mistake of thinking that winter vegetables means you must plant  the vegetables in the winter months. It resulted in me losing about 20 heads of cauliflower. It is the hardest and most painful lesson I have learnt in the school of gardening. That winter vegetables actually mean harvest in winter, not plant in winter.

If I would like to harvest in winter it means I have to start planting now. I am planning to have a wider variety of winter harvest and drew up a plan to follow the progress of each vegetable:

Plant Name	planted	Trays or direct	Transplanted	Estimated harvest time	Actual harvest time	notes
Broccoli	23 January 2011	Trays
Cauliflower	23 January 2011	Trays
Purple broccoli	January 2011	Trays		9-10 weeks after transplanting
Garlic	January 2011	Trays				19 February seeing green sprouts through  soil
Frilly lettuce	January	Trays		50-60 days
Onions	24 January 2011	Trays		Oct/nov 2011
Spinach	January 2011	Trays and direct
Beetroot	January 2011	directly		11- 12 weeks
Carrots	January 2011	directly		50 – 60 days End march 2011
coriander	24 january 2011	pots
Peas

As you can see from the list above I still have to plant peas and then my first  winter  planting will be done.The broccoli seedlings are already growing beautifully and needs to be planted into the soil soon.