You need space Merlin. No good in a pot. The best crop I ever saw was on a coach trip, at a G.C. in Cheshire. They had been sown in a secluded area about 6 feet square, which must have been well manured and fertilised. This might suit the amount of space you have. Remember to pinch the tops out to get rid of Black Fly in March.

As Snoop said don't plant until the soil has warmed up, dig a trench and fill with well rotted manure or compost as they like a good feed. You may need to put posts at either end of the row with a 'T' piece and use something like binder twine to support them, we do otherwise the wind blows them over.

I have grown in pots or buckets really. 3 plants per bucket started off in the greenhouse in mid Jan. They cropped ok and its the only way I can afford to grow them in the space I have.

Here, people plant them in the autumn, and they survive well even in dreadful winter weather and so have a head start in spring. We missed the planting slot this last year, but have just manured a nice, sunny area for them, and they will go in as early as we dare plant them in spring. Moongrower is right - support is a very good idea - we've lost lots to the wind and excitable cats in the past. I have actually planted them in the past in falling snow into cold, waterlogged soil, and STILL they have grown pretty well, so go for it! (I don't recommend the waterlogged bit if you can avoid it, though) I have also tried germinating them in pots and planting out once the weather improves, but it didn't seem to work particularly well for us.
Has anyone ever tried covering soil with black fleece overwinter to help it warm up and stay drier so that you can plant things maybe a week or two earlier?

Thankyou all very much for your advice. I love broad beans and as they are expensive in the shops i thought I'd have a go this year. Much of my garden is shady but there are two beds that i think get enough sun. Six foot square is too big a plot for my garden and there isn't room for a trench but as SBG has had success in a bucket, (!) I'll give that a go, and plant a couple in the flowerbed too. Lack of space means compromise and I have lots of garden compost.
They sound pretty tolerant plants and I'm looking forward to the soil warming up. It's very mild here at the moment and bees buzzing around but we all know how quickly that can change.
How optimistic of you Gattina to plant in the snow and that certainly gives me hope. I've just looked up where you live and altho' I love Devon, my heart has always yearned for Italy.

Broad beans are an expensive crop to grow as they do take up a lot of space and also the yield per plant isn't always huge - depends on the weather. We've found the varieties Witkiem and Express Eleonora do well for us.

Funny, isn't it, MBD? My heart does quite a lot of yearning for Devon, where I spent many childhood holidays!

I was told you could plant in autumn so I did, They are still alive although they looked a bit sad when we had frost. Hope this wasnt a horrible mistake, will just have to hope they survive.

Hi Jenfren they should survive where you live... our ground is too cold in winter to plant in autumn. You may wont to do a second sowing in early spring.

There are special varieties of broad beans designed for November sowing. Living where we do, none will survive.

We've been given BB seeds by our neighbour who told us (rather sternly) to plant in January! Well .... the weather seems to be fairly good AT THE MOMENT!!!!!! so we're going for it. If, in early summer, I get on here and moan about my BB plants - ignore me! ;o)

I still grow 'The Sutton'. A neighbour has broad bean plants in 3s in his flower bed dotted around. he says he gets a 'good enough crop'. The rationale behind a few together is so pollinators have a better chance of spreading the pollen between broad bean flowers.

We buy "Aguadulce" beans, which are the local favourite and they are supposed to be autumn/winter sown. I'm sure there must be a UK version of this. I shall plant half a row later on today, I think, and then stagger more sowings through to spring and try to keep sufficient records to find out what works best.

I'm not sure about planting broad beans in amongst flowers - they are always a blackfly magnet in my garden, and I think I'd want to keep them separated. The runner beans up a hedge sounds like a great idea, though.

Crikey! Thankyou everyone. I wish I could highlight and save certain points that seem to be relevant to my patch of ground.

Copy and paste into a Word doc. MBD

Thanks for the suggestion MG, which I'll try. I usually save things in My Documents but for some reason, I didn't think of trying that either. Sometimes I think it's time I retired!

lol!