In article ,
Alan Gould wrote:
In article , Nick Maclaren
writes
Your broad bean plants will have suffered from the rapid drop in
temperature but they won't be dead. If you have any horticultural fleece
or similar you could give them some protection with it but don't try
doing anything else. They should recover when conditions improve and
begin to put on new growth, but they will probably have had a set-back
resulting in the crop being a little later than it may have been.

Probably, but not necessarily. The worst conditions are alternating
warm, wet ones and hard frosts - those can kill even broad beans.

If you have those weather conditions many plants will have a difficult
time but we have never lost broad beans. Dwarf varieties tend be a
little less affected than taller ones and a little help with frost
protection is a wise precaution at this time of the year.

I did. 30-40% died or failed to crop, and the rest took so long to
ecover that they were overtaken by the spring sowing and then cropped
abysmally. The variety was Aquadulce. I have tried again since, but
the evidence was clear enough that I dug them up in the spring and
reused the space.

For reasons I can't explain, my garden always has had some particularly
nasty fungi with a predeliction for beans - broad beans are the most
resistant and I rarely lose more than a few percent, but I have lost
95% of dwarfs (and 90% of peas) many times.

What I would advise anyone with limp broad beans is to wait until the
weather starts to warm. If the beans are showing signs of getting on
with it, fine; if many are dead and all are sick, scrap them and
replant. This isn't a subtle difference, so no experience is needed
to tell the two cases apart!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679