Crimson flowered broad beans

[Alicante]

Hi, am thinking about what to grow next year and saw a photo of these ( by veggiechicken I think) in a thread about vegetable flowers. Please could some one tell me what the variety is called and if it is the same one offered by D T Brown seeds. Plus do they taste nice? No point growing if not a pleasant taste!

Thanks,
Al.

[Scarlet]

Broad Bean Crimson Flowered Seeds|D. T. Brown Vegetable Seeds

They are called...crimson flowered broad beans

I know you are all going to shout at me but I think all broad beans taste the same!! I usually pick mine when the pods are small and eat pod and bean.

[veggiechicken]

Mine were in a shady spot with other BBs and none of them cropped particularly well. Beautiful flowers though

[Scarlet]

Aquadulce Claudia for me every time

[Alicante]

Thank you both very much for such a prompt answer! I think they look lovely so even if they are not heavy croppers I will still grow some. They wont be the only variety I grow, the overwintering ones are up on the allotment and next spring I will sow some masterpiece green long pod as usual. Just fancied trying something new!
Thanks again

[Guest]

I grow three:-
Aquadulce for my earlys - Crop fairly well
Crimson are quite small and pretty
And Jonah - a bit of a whopper (I will try and get this in the vsp after next years crop)

[Hazel at the Hill]

Crimson flowered broad beans are gorgeous! You only get 3-4 beans to a pod but the skins on the beans are emerald green not horrible grey, and are thin so you don't need to pop the beans out the skins when cooked.

[bearded bloke]

Mine were in a shady spot with other BBs

there is only one true BB & whats more I prefer mottled sunshine


Serious answer would be similar to Hazel above

[Jeanied]

The crimson flowered ones were made popular by the admirable Heritage Seed Library - re- discovered by this charity and now back in the mainstream of seed sellers. The flowers are very scented - which attracts the early bumble bees looking for a good feed. Not heavy croppers but good for a potager style garden.

I was at Wisley a couple of years ago looking at their trial ground for broad beans and there are a few gorgeous strains out there - dwarf habit, scarlet flowers etc - let's hope some of them make it to the seed selling stage

[Alicante]

Thanks again for letting me know where the seed is available, ordered it this morning!
Really looking forward to growing them next year, the flowers are supposed to be highly scented. My mum always says that broad bean flowers are the smell of spring.

[BertieFox]

I think they are worth growing just for show, although I would agree with other comments about the poor crop and relatively poor taste.

For those experimenters out there, this ought to be really good material for some good bean breeding experiments. I don't know if the red flower colour is dominant or recessive, but it would be marvellous to have all the virtues of a Green Longpod variety only with scarlet flowers..

Can't be THAT difficult to achieve, and shouldn't take too many decades to get a stable cultivar! I might even have a go myself.

[sparrow100]

I have these for the first time. Unfortunately I fell over backwards pulling leeks this afternoon, so I have a couple fewer.

[Alison]

They do indeed smell lovely and are extremely tasty. Not the most productive but definitely worth it. Always plant 20 or so in the tunnel from a Jan sowing in rout trainers for a nice early crop.

[hamamelis]

I actually got a better crop from them than from the aquadulche this year! There's not many beans in a pod, but I got a good number of pods, and they tasted good to me.

Plus all my plot neighbours kept admiring 'em. I bought them again for next year.

[Two_Sheds]

Remember that broad beans will easily cross with each other, so keep your crimsons separate

I got really lazy and shoved all my bean seed in together a few years ago (red flowered, red epicure, aquedulce), and now I just save the best of the crop each year for seed.

I've found the crimson flowered to be smaller plants with fewer beans inside, but they were the last to be attacked by black fly, which was an unexpected bonus