Broad Bean 'Aquadulce Claudia'

Some vegetables reward planning ahead, and this is the best of them. Sown in October or November while everything else is winding down, Aquadulce Claudia sits through the winter growing slowly, then hands you tender pods the following June — a full three weeks before any spring sowing could manage. The first proper harvest of the year, out of ground that was empty in autumn.

The name is Spanish-Italian, meaning sweetwater, but the variety has become thoroughly British in habit and holds an RHS Award of Garden Merit for it. Long pods of 20cm and more, six to eight white seeds in each, on upright plants around a metre tall. The white seeds cook softer and milder than the green-seeded varieties.

Two things catch people out. Mice will dig up autumn-sown seed given the chance, so lay chicken wire flat over the row until germination if you have them. And once the pods start setting, pinch out the top ten centimetres of each plant — it pushes energy into the pods and removes the soft tips that blackfly go for. The pinched tips are worth steaming and eating, which most people never discover.