potatoes and broad beans as companions

[serenity]

I have a copy of sarah ravens "great vegetable plot". In there she recommends growing broad beans and early potatoes. She says by planting the beans in the valleys between the earthed up spuds they will protect the halums from frost and feed the potatoes by fixing nitrogen in the soil.

I was wondering if anyone had ever tried this? If it works then it would mean 2 crops from the same piece of ground and if I also grew a quick line of cut and come on top of the spuds (joy larcome recommends) at planting time that would make 3

[ogilvie]

Serenity (love your name BTW),

Thanks for cheering me up in what has been a very bad day, health wise. This has put a smile on my face, sounds wonderful. Is her book worth getting? Most of the gardening books I have are not veggie books, I have Dr H's book but I would like to get a few to keep me company when I don't feel well enough to go into the garden. My veg garden is small (very) and is irregulary shaped to fit in with the rest of the back garden but I am sooo looking forward to planting time. Potatoes are chitting, garlic is in pots to start it off before going in to the raised beds and as soon as I feel up to it I'll do my onion sets the same way although I think those will go in the larger modules instead. The only seed I've sown are sprouting ones for eating almost as soon as they pop their wee heads up, some peas as suggested on one of the previous threads and sprouting broccoli. I am just dying to taste something I have grown again.

When did you say spring was coming, she asks in desperation?

Happy gardening
Ogilvie

[Lesley Jay]

How on earth do you manage to get in to weed? You would need to stand on the potato ridges to harvest the broad beans. So I don't see how it works!

[Mrs Dobby]

I dont know so much LJ, if you used beds of 4 to 5' and used Snadgers inverted wigwams for training the beans up, so the crops hang to the outside, then it could work, tho I have no idea whether tis a good idea or not!

PS Mr D asks if your plot is the one with the blue shed with large daisies on it!

[Two_Sheds]

How on earth do you manage to get in to weed?

You shouldn't get too many weeds as they will be shaded by the crops, if planted close together.
Bare ground=weeds

[Mrs Dobby]

They are broad beans Mrs D. These bean plants stand up by themselves and don't climb like runners, climbing borlotti and climbing french beans.

No. Tell Mr.D. that I don't have a shed.

Lol, just goes to show my ignorance about varieties then doesnt it!

Ah well, at least I'm learning, I used to think that ALL peas and beans needed supporting with canes and netting, now I'm learning otherwise!

Ah, then is it on the same site as that one, and if so I bet its the neat one near the gates!

[Mrs Dobby]

Lol, darn it! There goes my plans of auctioning a piccy of the elusive LJ on ebay then!!

Mr D says if you see a Tesco .com van parked up outside, give him a shout and a brew please!

[serenity]

Hi ogilvie, sorry you are not feeling well today, hope tomorow finds you in better health . I would recommend sarah raven's book, it has loads of lovely photographs to fire your enthusiasm. She likes to use flowers in her planting which apeals to me as I don't have an alotment so want the garden to be beautiful as well as productive. She also makes recommendations for productive varieties and ideas on what you should be growing.
I also have 2 books by joy larcom, grow your own, and creative vegetable gardening both of which are great, the first is a must for novice gardeners as it is full of information yet not complicated at all (and very well priced on amazon) and the second shows you the pottager way of growing.

I have been looking into this further as I really wanted it to be viable as it would increase the productivity of my plot sooo much found this site and would be interested in all your comments

http://www.cidicco.hn/newcidiccoenglish/inf18.htm

[serenity]

come on guys, someone must have an opinion on this?

[Two_Sheds]

It's companion planting, like the 3 Sisters bed. Try it, see how it works for you.

[Two_Sheds]

keyhole beds

How do you harvest without walking on the other crop?

You'd need to plant so that you can reach everything without walking on the soil. A no-dig bed system? A keyhole, or mandala, bed system? This is how I grow my veg, and it's v.successful (even tho it might look a mess compared to regimented rows)

[Snadger]

Why would potatoes want Nitrogen fixated from the beans? It would give top growth at the expense of tubers, surely!

Not saying its not worth exploring (a la three little Sisters) but it would certainly play havoc with your crop rotation schedule!

[serenity]

two sheds, could you explain what keyhole and mandala systems are?

My beds are roughly 4 ft by 6 ft, 4 of them and then another which is 3 ft by 12ft so I do not need to walk on them.

Trouble with experimenting is as I have never grown either of these before I wouldn't know if the planting had made a difference. I am probably just grasping at straws as I am so desperate to make my patch as productive as possible

[Poledragon]

I think I'll give this a go. I'm going to be starting off my broad beans in pots anyway, as I'm a tad behind in the garden. My veggie beds at home are long and narrow, and I get two rows of potatoes down the length of them, so a row of broad beans down the centre of the two rows would work really well.

On an allotment scale, why not just plant the broad beans every other 'valley', that way you can still walk through the bed for weeding/earthing up/harvesting the beans.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Every other row sound 'intuitively' right, PD, so you can access both crops, BUT if these are main crop spuds that you want to earth up, surely it'll disturb the broad beans?

PS no idea on the science on this - leave that to NTG, Snagger, PW et al