Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi all,
This is my first foray into gardening, so excuse me if this seems like a daft question...

I have broad beans which were growing pretty well (about a metre tall and starting to flower) until last week when blackfly took hold at the tips. I went for the soapy water method and managed to get rid of them, but since then the plants have started to look a bit stricken: the leaves are a bit wilty, some seem to have gone an odd shade of purple at the edges and some flowers are drying up.

Now I don't know if i used the wrong kind of soap (tesco's eco-friendly stuff so I'd have thought not) or if they've contracted a strange disease or what. I'm watering them regularly and everything else seems fine... I'll be gutted if they die as I only have 5 plants but they take up almost half of my (absolutely weeny) plot.

Any help much appreciated. Cheers.

The black fly attack will have weakened them, I suspect. If you are sure you've cracked that problem, you might have to give them a bit of time to recover. It's often suggested that you should nip out the top of your plants as they only go for the soft new shoots. Some people wait till they get an attack, others do it as a preventative. The soap you use shouldn't cause a problem as lomg as it was well diluted.
Hope they survive!

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vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated Aug 29th 2008

A metre tall and just starting to flower doesn't sound quite right. Where are you growing them? Indoors or out - in pots or not? Maybe your soap solution was too strong.

The plants are outside in a small raised bed. They're not in the sunniest corner, but I think i've been watering them enough. I think you could be right about the solution being too strong: I really doused the one that had the real problem and was a little more restrained with the the others. There's no black-fly now, but the one that had the problem is taking a turn for the worse - blotchy leaves and shrivelled flowers. That said, the others look like they're coming back. And the dodgy one appears to have given up on the main stem and has started a new offshoot from the bottom which is flowering nicely (if at a shonky angle). I'm going to pinch out the tips as suggested, and see where i go from there...

I don't know - it's all a little confusing. In other news, my first ever proper veg appeared today in the shape of some new peas that have somehow defied the ravenous snails to appear as if by magic. What a great feeling...

I should give your broadies a nice feed (something like worm wee from a wormery is great), the blackfly will have stressed the plants, and they probably just need a bit of TLC to bring them back to form.

Best of luck and welcome to the vine!