Harvesting Broad Beans - How to tell when broad beans are ready to pick

In this video, I show you what to look for when harvesting broad beans and how to tell when broad beans are ready to pick.

There are few plants that immediately take our minds to winter than broad beans. They are also one of the plants that generate a large number of questions in terms of "When are broad beans ready to pick?". They are also very commonly referred to as FAVA beans, which sometimes causes confusion. Broad beans and fava beans are the same plant and bean. The aim of this video is to take you on a broad bean journey so you get to better understand their growing cycle and what to look out for to be able to tell when a broad bean is ready to be picked.

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Video timelines:

00:00 - Intro
00:34 - Why broad beans are often confused with normal beans
01:55 - Taking a look at different broad bean varieties
03:12 - Broad bean growth stages
04:40 - How to tell when a broad bean is ready to be picked
07:56 - Conclusion on knowing when to harvest broad beans

When picking broad beans there are some things to consider and remember. Firstly, you need to know a little bit about the broad bean itself. I give you some insight into what they broad bean is, how to use it and some of the confusion often associated with it. Then, we need to better understand the growing cycle from the broad bran flower through to the ready to pick pod. We also go into what a ripe broad bean pod looks like, what the mature bean looks like and things to avoid to not have overly ripe beans.

When it comes to cooking and eating broad beans, they are almost always best cooked. You ca eat them raw, but they do not taste great at all. They are very bitter with an unpleasant texture, which is mainly due to the thick shell covering the broad bean itself. Once cooked the bean pops out of its shell to reveal a juicy, slightly sweet and incredibly buttery bean that is simply magical with butter and garlic.

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Music credit: bensound.com

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