Broad bean · Renca, Santiago Metropolitan, Chile
When to plant broad beans in Renca
Main outdoor window
20 Jul - 10 Aug
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
14 September
In Renca, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
8-28 Oct
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Renca
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Sow for overwintering
22 Jan - 12 Feb
Counting back 114 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Sow direct
20 Jul - 10 Aug
Eight weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
8-28 Oct
Broad beans through the year
Against the frost risk in Renca
Why these dates
Sow in autumn in zones 7 and warmer for an early summer crop, or eight weeks before last frost in colder regions. Autumn sowings also dodge the worst of blackfly.
Survives -10C once established, and light snow cover helps rather than harms. Very young seedlings going into deep cold are the only real risk.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Broad beans are timed for direct sowing 8 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Renca.
The median frost-free season here is 265 days, against 80 to 100 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Renca
Other vegetables to time
Growing broad beans in Renca
When should I plant broad beans in Renca?
Aim for 20 Jul - 10 Aug in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 10-31 Aug - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will broad beans be ready to harvest in Renca?
Expect to start picking around 8-28 Oct, based on 80 to 100 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will broad beans tolerate?
Survives -10C once established, and light snow cover helps rather than harms. Very young seedlings going into deep cold are the only real risk.