Thanks for visiting and commenting. You asked a good question. Broad beans are also known as fava beans. They don’t seem to be as popular as other types of beans. I found two conflicting suggestions on when to plant them. I’m going to go with the information that they fall into the hardy vegetables group and should be planted as soon as the soil can be worked, at the same time as peas. I’ve not personally grown them.

Territorial Seed Company’s catalog says fava/broad need soil temp of 65F to germinate. It could be worth germinating them indoors. If you want to try this you can do it in a similar way to sprouting seeds for beansprouts. Start as if you were cooking the beans – soak overnight in water – then rinse and drain them twice a day until you see that they’ve germinated.

Do let me know how this works if you decide to try them.