Fava: harvest versus cover crop?

[Leenstar]

I am trying to amend some rather clay soil through specific but productive plant choices and steady stream of compost.

I like fava beans and bought Windsor fava beans for planting in the spring. I was disappointed with the overall yield and hoped to plant some more this summer/fall to act as a cover crop, a nitrogen fixer and hopefully for harvest.

Here are my questions
1. Anyone have specific varieties that that prefer or have had the best success with growing (hopeful a Zone 5 info might be on offer)
2. Do favas raised as a fall cover crop produce sufficient beans for eating?
3. Do people who use fava for cover crops have a specific time of summer that plant them if they are hoping that they are productive or is fall planting usually just for soil improvement not harvest?
4. I got lots of pods on late beans but the actual beans inside the late pods were tiny brown specks not beans. What did i do wrong? Do I have a fungus?

[atash]

1. Anyone have specific varieties that that prefer or have had the best success with growing (hopeful a Zone 5 info might be on offer)

I grow a different type than you, with fatter, less broad beans. That's because I'm after falafel and foules not a substitute for lima beans.

I have 'Banner', which is usually grown as a cover crop but is quite edible, and an un-named Egyptian type.

2. Do favas raised as a fall cover crop produce sufficient beans for eating?

Yes, in fact they produce better that way but...I don't think you can overwinter them. They're not that coldhardy.

3. Do people who use fava for cover crops have a specific time of summer that plant them if they are hoping that they are productive or is fall planting usually just for soil improvement not harvest?

Favas grown as a fall crop are planted around September. They make a little tuft of foliage, and, sensing short day lengths and cooling weather, stop growing.

They survive over the winter as long as temps are above about 20F, and shoot up in the spring, bloom, and set a heavier crop than they would spring-planted.

I don't think you can do that in Illinois. Too cold and too dry. Banner is one of the hardiest; it reputedly takes down to 10F.

I suspect that if you want beans, you need to spring plant. Otherwise, you could plant as soon as the weather cools off enough to get them to germinate, and sacrifice the crop for green manure, but I do not think they will bloom and set late in the year, much less ripen.

Can't help with the last question.

In general, Favas are NOT a highly productive crop. They are grown more for their nitrogen fixation and ability to make good use of what would otherwise be less-prime seasons, especially in maritime climates poorly-suited to soy. Here, you can squeeze in a short-season summer crop after they ripen, then do an autumn-winter crop of something else.

They're also popular with bees, FWIW.

[steev]

At least you can eat the tender greens and finger-sized pods.

Don't know whether it would be worth the effort to straw-mulch over Winter in hope they'd survive.

[seedywen]

atash's answers to your questions are the same as mine would have been.

However two additional points.

Getting your Fava beans into the ground as soon as the soil can be worked in late winter or early spring, can help increase productivity. Although sometimes if that planting time is unseasonably wet, the seeds rot, necessitating a replant.

Secondly, even though Favas fix nitrogen with their own roots system, have found, they still need a fairly rich soil to be productive.

Giving my Favas, a generous supply of compost and CIF(complete organic fertilizer) directly in the row, where they'll grow, yields the most pods with generous seeds.

When selecting the Favas for seed, the best pods with the largest seeds are kept for next years planting.

I always top the plants to prevent that black insect that likes the tops, and to make the plants shorter, to prevent blow-down. Plus the upper flowers usually fail to yield pods of much size anyway.

I grow the small seeded Favas for cover crops but the large Windsor types for seeds, because like to shuck the inside seed out of the jacket for the sweeter taste.

[nuts]

I planted 30% of my garden with favabeans last fall,but it possibly will behigher coming fall,the objective is more than 50%.
According to the needs in surface of summer crops I can hack it as greenmanure before devellopment of the beans in mai,eat the green beans and hack the green plants in mai/ juin and harvest the dry beans in july.My favorite crop in july after the dry beans is buckwheat,but certainly other things are possible to plant in july.

Thus you can in fact plant as much as possible,because the way to take profit from it is very flexible.You can decide to harvest just enough dry favabeans for seedstock in fall and eat loads of green beans,I love them!!And this will free surface for tomatoes,corn,peppers,squashes etc.

I don't plant them very early,only end october/november.I never had succes with september planting.In fact better they are just very small plants,hardly emerged in winter,bigger plants have more trouble with frost.

I have my 'landrace',that is that I plant a mix of different varieties. I mix in a few beans of any new origin I can get hold on.From the dry beans I select the beans from the plants that made it through the winter(easy,because those who didn't survive have dissapeared )
Then I select the big beans(easy too,and that because big beans make peeling easier).and that's it.

I did cowpeas too but I banned them to my other garden,because they cross easily with the big favas.and I suspect the small sizes of some of my beans,being caused by them.If your not interested in eating them,cowpeas are better,because you need not so much weight in seed as the small sized seeds give the same size plant,with the same weight in grain/plant.
In my case also they resisted better to the frost,when planted in september than the big favas.

I don't do summerplanting,this just makes no sense to me.

OK that's for my climate,climate zones are still a mystery for me,but you can pm me if you want a few of my favabeans.

[raymondo]

You find cowpeas cross with favas? Amazing! I'm also very surprised to learn that cowpeas cope better with frosts than favas, or did you mean the other way round?

[12540dumont]

I plant my favas as soon as I'm done planting garlic. I stay away from Broad Beans like Windsor and stick with strictly beans like Aquadulce, Supersimonia and Crimson. I plant them all and let the bumblers do as they will. I picked enough beans for my CSA for 2 weeks.

I left the others to dry. I've just started shucking them today. Part of them I boil and then re-dry to make Ful Mudammas or other winter stews. The rest I dry for next year's crop. Once, they're dry, they go in the fridge till September.

This is the first year I've had vignas (and most of those the pig has eaten, so I'll have to wait and see.) Favas are an easy overwintering crop for me and soy beans really don't grow here. Not at any time, pick a season, any season and watch them fail. I'm in a semi-coastal climate, similar to Northern Italy.

I always plant them with endomycorrhizae. At harvest time, I cut them and only till the roots under. Corn likes being where favas were. I let the beans dry on the stems, then remove them and let the beans dry down some more and finally shuck them. The soil where the favas overwintered was much better than the areas left uncovered.

Well, actually, the fall crops were there....just some of them drowned. That left bare soil. So that was that.

Attachments:

[Leenstar]

I appreciate all the help. I love this place!

I have a small back yard garden and am probably expecting too much production out of it.

I may have to try some other varieties. THis was my first year with them and I had a bed of all legumes in some clay soil with some amendment. I would like ti have intensive legume plantings and might also rotation my beds for other cover crops. Currently I only have 6 beds 50" x 6'.

I like favas to eat but was surprised how long they held out in the spot. I figured that they would be done earlier than they were but wanted to get more from them. At least enough for one meal. I think I got a total of about 10 for fresh eating (and I mean the beans not the pods).

I think I'll try some other varieties.

I like drying type favas too but my experience with growing drying beans is that for the space required to have enough, I could have had alot of other vegetables. It certainly makes one respect how cheap a bag of beans in the store can be after I tried to grow beans for use as a dry bean!

[mnjrutherford]

ATASH - regarding falafel, do you use the beans fresh or do you first dry then soak them? Also, do you combine with garbanzos at all?

For the rest of you.... y'all are planting the fava in the fall? Allium planting time?!?!? I've been thinking it was a spring planted crop! It would be loads better for me to plant this in the fall! Do any of you have enough seed to share with me? I would be using them for falafel but if they are a good feed bean, (it never occurred to me until I read it here today) I'll use it for that as well. I'd prolly plant in the corn field, 150' x 50'. Is there a recommended type or source if I need to buy online?

[atash]

ATASH - regarding falafel, do you use the beans fresh or do you first dry then soak them? Also, do you combine with garbanzos at all?

They're pretty dry when I harvest them, then I clean them and let them dry out even more to prevent spoilage. Maybe they'd have more tender skins fresh but I'm anxious to get them into storage.

No, I don't cut them with garbanzos; I think favas are more authentic. The reason Americans use garbanzos is to avoid lawsuits if a boy with favism (genetic lack of an enzyme needed to break down a chemical in fava beans that rips apart hemoglobin; it is rare and occurs mostly among Arab, African, and southeast Asian boys. Found on the X chromosome so girls rarely get it) keels over dead.

For those who don't know about its origins, although it is now ubiquitous in many countries, felafel originates among Copts in Egypt, and spread to Christian communities throughout the erstwhile Ottoman Empire, has famously been adopted by Yisraeli Jews, and has spread to many other countries by way of Lebanese expats. Egyptians make it out of Fava beans. Theirs are not as thin and broad as those typical of Europe, but more typically "bean-shaped". They call them "foule". Very commonly eaten as "mezze", a word referring to the many hors d'oevre-like dishes served at a vegetarian meal in that part of the world; in which case there is no main entree, just many substantial side-dishes.

Although originating as Lenten fare, felafel has long been popular as fast food. It is ubiquitous.

I make home-made pida to serve it on.

[atash]

Raymondo, I have a feeling we've got a common-name mismatch across cultures. You're probably referring to Vigna, which is also what we call Cowpeas.

Reading Nuts post carefully, I have a feeling what he is calling cowpeas are a smaller-seeded Fava. Then everything he said about them makes perfect sense. Those are typically used strictly as cover crops and as forage in Europe, which might also explain calling them "Cowpeas". To put this into perspective, it never occurred to Italians to eat Favas themselves at all until a horrific drought on Sicily in the Middle Ages wiped out other crops and the locals ate them out of desperation. For that reason they're a traditional snack/party/banquet food around the time of the feast of St. Joseph if I recall correctly.

Nuts, to English-speakers, a Cowpea is a Vigna, a heat-loving tropical bean. Despite the common name, humans eat them, though I bet they got used as fodder too. If my guess is correct your Cowpeas are also perfectly edible by humans (as long as they don't have Favism).

[blueadzuki]

Jul 16, 2011 12:48:21 GMT -5 atash said:

Raymondo, I have a feeling we've got a common-name mismatch across cultures. You're probably referring to Vigna, which is also what we call Cowpeas.

Reading Nuts post carefully, I have a feeling what he is calling cowpeas are a smaller-seeded Fava. Then everything he said about them makes perfect sense. Those are typically used strictly as cover crops and as forage in Europe, which might also explain calling them "Cowpeas". To put this into perspective, it never occurred to Italians to eat Favas themselves at all until a horrific drought on Sicily in the Middle Ages wiped out other crops and the locals ate them out of desperation. For that reason they're a traditional snack/party/banquet food around the time of the feast of St. Joseph if I recall correctly.

Nuts, to English-speakers, a Cowpea is a Vigna, a heat-loving tropical bean. Despite the common name, humans eat them, though I bet they got used as fodder too. If my guess is correct your Cowpeas are also perfectly edible by humans (as long as they don't have Favism).

I guess it's a bit like the situation in a TV docu-movie I caught the tail end of once, about one of the roving collectors for the world seed bank. at one point, they taped him going on a hunt in a part of the Middle east after wild chickpeas near the end, the showed his hand with a sample of what he had found. the camera wasn't all that close, but even at the distance they were at, I could clearly see that what he had in his hand were grasspea seeds, not chickpeas, even though he was saying chickpeas. What I think may have happened is that perhaps he may have meant chickling peas. grasspea is also sometimes called chickling vetch so I can imagine someone might call it chickling pea in Britain (the hunter was british). and from there chickpea is not beyond comprehension. there is such a thing as wild chickpea, but I think he was a little too far south to be finding that. (He was in Turkey, I think, and you don't usually find wild chickpea outside of the immediate Holy Land area

[12540dumont]

Jo,
I'll send you some of my fava mix with the wool. I haven't forgotten about the yarn!

Atash, Thanks once again for your insight.

[nuts]

indeed I mean the small favas
Here we call favas fèves and what I meant is what we call fèveroles.
I don't know where I got cowpeas from,but feveroles are big pea-sized and they are mostly used for animal food,so 'cowpeas' made sense to me ,sorry for that.

now I understand raymondo's amazement

[raymondo]

Jul 16, 2011 12:48:21 GMT -5 atash said:

Raymondo, I have a feeling we've got a common-name mismatch across cultures. You're probably referring to Vigna, which is also what we call Cowpeas.

Ah, that makes sense. We call the small favas horse beans or tic beans. I was having trouble getting my head around that one. Explains the crossing and the hardiness issue. Thanks atash.
I prefer favas over garbanzos for hummos and I now use extremegardner's idea of sprouting the fava seeds for use in ful medamas.