Welcome back to Part 2 of Growing Broad Beans. Here’s the handy links to my other parts in the Growing Broad Beans Series.

• Part 1 📕 – Origins, Nutrition & Growing Conditions of Broad Beans
• Part 3 📘 – How to Sow, Grow & Harvest Broad Beans FREE PDF Checklist
• Part 4 📙 – How to Plant Out your Broad Beans in a Raised Bed with video.

In this part I’ll be teaching you about the different varieties of Broad Beans and giving you the opportunity to download a Free Broad Bean Variety Comparison PDF, which you can view and print to help you choose the best variety for your vegetable garden.

Broad Beans

The Latin word for Broad Bean is Vicia Faba. Other names worldwide for Broad Bean include Fava bean and Faba bean.

Broad beans are a type of Vetch species in the pea and bean family.

Broad beans came from Field beans which can be grown as cover crops overwinter to fix the nitrogen in the soil. Field beans are half the size of normal broad beans and have pods with only 3 beans. Field bean type of Broad beans can also be grown to eaten and are good for container growing.

What Broad Bean variety should you grow?

There are more Broad Bean varieties than I thought, over 30+ varieties plus rare varieties worldwide.

Quick Glance – Broad Bean Variety List

I know we all have busy lives so here the quick glance list on Broad Bean varieties that might suit your growing needs or vegetable garden space.

For those that are happy to make a cuppa tea and put your feet up and read the free Broad Bean Variety comparison chart, scroll to the bottom of this article to download your freebie.

There are lots of different varieties for things like:

Broad Beans for Growing in Pots

Choose the small pod size varieties and varieties described as compact or dwarf.

Compact Varieties include: The Sutton, Duet, Robin Hood and Oscar.

Broad Beans Best for Freezing

Some Broad Beans cannot be frozen as they go mushy so it’s best to stick with ones that are recommended for freezing.

Freezable varieties include: Masterpiece Green Longpod, Witkiem Manita, Express and Dreadnought.

Broad Bean Ornamental Varieties

There are a few unusual Broad Bean varieties with unusual beans and colourful scented flowers. These would be a great addition to your regular variety.

Ornamental – colourful flowers variety: Crimson Flowered (red flowers) and Stereo (pure white flowered).

Patterned or red bean varieties: Karmazyn (pink beans), Red Epicure (Red beans) and Atawallpas Fingerprint (patterned beans – rare).

Broad Beans with excellent flavour

You would hope all Broad Beans would have great flavour, but some have excellent flavour due to their origins or the way they were bred.

Excellent flavour varieties are: Giant Exhibition Longpod, Bunyards Exhibition and Hangdown Green / Leidse.

Broad Beans – Tall with long pods

There are quite a few very tall varieties of Broad Bean from 1 meter to 1.75 meters tall. If your vegetable garden is not in a windy location or you can stabilise these tall plants with stakes, they reward you with long pods = more beans!

Tall varieties with long pods: Windsor, Masterpiece Green Longpod and Long Cascine.

Broad Beans suitable for small vegetable gardens

There really is a broad bean for everyone. There are many smaller height varieties and some don’t even need staking. If you need a Broad Bean variety for a small space, then these are the varieties for you.

Small space varieties: Oscar, Ratio, Crimson Flowered, Eleonora and The Sutton.

Broad Bean Early Maturing varieties

If you would like to harvest around May or early June, from a February sowing, the early maturing varieties are for you. These are great for making space in the veg garden for summer vegetables.

Early maturing varieties: Express, Ratio, Listra and De Monica.

Broad Bean Late Cropping Varieties

There are a few late sowing varieties, sow in April to May for an Autumn Harvest.

Late cropping varieties: Luz de Orono and Scorpio.

Broad Bean Overwintering Varieties

If you want to start your Broad Beans early under fleece in October and November for an early spring harvest in Late May and June, these are the varieties for you.

Overwintering varieties: Aquadulce, Super Aquadulce and Meteor.

Broad Bean High Yielding Varieties

If you want to grow Broad Bean plants with the most pods per plant, try these high yielding varieties.

High Yielding (lots of pods per plant) varieties: Imperial Green Longpod, Meteor, Express, Grano Violetto, De Monica, Aquadulce.

Broad Bean – The most amount of beans in one pod varieties

These varieties have the most beans in one pod. If you love Broad beans, you may want to try these varieties as you won’t need to grow many plants.

Most beans per Pod Varieties: Giant Exhibition Longpod (9 – 10 beans in a pod), Imperial Green Longpod (9 beans) and Bunyards Exhibition (9 beans).

Comparison of Broad Bean Varieties

Please find below a PDF comparison of Broad Beans for you to download, print, deliberate and choose a variety at your leisure.

📥 Free PDF Download

Download your FREE PDF Broad Bean Variety Comparison Chart.

(Click here if you can’t see the download button)

My Broad Bean – Pick of the Month is…Eleonora.

Here’s why I’ll be growing Eleonora this year:

• Start sowing from February in modules in the unheated greenhouse,
• Eleonora is a new express variety which is quick growing,
• It isn’t too tall, which is great as our vegetable garden is windy.
• Eleonora has a great flavour.