LABLAB BEAN IS A GOOD CHOICE FOR A QUICK SCREEN ON A TRELLIS OR FENCE. IT GROWS FAST, HAS BEAUTIFUL, FRAGRANT FLOWERS THAT ATTRACT BUTTERFLIES AND NECTAR FEEDING BIRDS AND IS EDIBLE! ALSO A COVER CROP OR FORAGE ADDITION PLANT!

Description
Lab Lab Bean – Highworth is a vigorous creeping annual (or bi-annual in warmer areas) well suited to hot humid climates over the wet season. Also known as Dolichos or Hyacinth bean, this is a prolific cropper of yummy purple popped beans which can be eaten when young if cooked. The delicious flowers are best eaten raw as an addition to your salads. Mature seeds must be boiled before eating to break down a toxic cyanogenic glycoside in their coat.

As a green manure cover crop it produces an excellent ground cover with large amounts of organic matter, nitrogen and legumes.

It can be sown with summer grasses (e.g. Forage sorghum) to provide mixed forage system. Can be grazed or harvested for hay. It is commonly used in mixed cropping-livestock systems in northern Australia and as a legume ley in sugar cane systems to address soil fertility decline.

Grow Notes
Lablab requires a sunny position where it’ll thrive in a wide range of soils, from poor sandy soils to heavy clays, when drainage is good. Lablab tolerates some flooding but does not withstand poor drainage or prolonged waterlogging for extended periods. Thanks to its taproot, lablab can extract water from 2 m below the soil surface, which makes it drought hardy and allows it to grow during the drier periods of the year.

These are climbing beans so the vines will need a medium to climb over; trellis, A-frame or fence are all popular solutions if you are eating them as opposed to using them for a cover crop or grazing bean.

Sow
Sow direct at 20mm depth spaced 10cms apart in Autumn or Winter in northern Australia, or Autumn/Spring in Southern areas in order to achieve the temperatures required for germination. Rows should be spaced 50cm apart and be in full sun, with well-drained soil.

Keep soil moist but never wet or dry.

Germination
6-10 days at 16-30°C

Maturity
55 days to maturity.