Northernest fava bean in Eatern N.America

[canadamike]

I will have a good supply of the PETITE GOURGANE DU LAC, the fava bean grown in the Lake St-Jean area, in the most northern gardening area in Eastern North America, close to the tundra.

They happened to be the best producing one for Johno 2-3 years ago, in hot dry Arkansas too. The more I garden, the more species seem to tell us that their cold tolerance genes are also working in the heat. The ''temperature extreme genes'' as some of us call it seem to be well spread in the veggie world...We have been on this thing for a while, and evidence is only stacking up....

So anyway, there will be a few pounds to spread around in the fall...or a lot of good soup made

[spacecase0]

this is very good info,
I wonder how many vegetables have that DNA in it ?

[12540dumont]

Mike, Can you put me on your list? You know me, I never met a bean I didn't like. Especially in a soup and with a French name I'm sure to misspell.

Holly

[canadamike]

About that mispelling thing....your husband told me you could only name veggies in french and also lingerie... ;D ;D ;D

Lingerie should be classified as a vegetable. After all it makes women so yummy

[12540dumont]

Mike,
That's not fair, I can also spell croissant, jalousie, brioche, tatin, galette and madeleines sometimes I can even spell baguette!

So, I'm better with Negligee and Peignoir...a man does not always travel on his stomach.

I don't know how you and my husband can jump from talking about parsnips to panties! I will have to get to the bottom of this.

[extremegardener]

Mike - do you sow these in the spring or fall, and about when do they flower? I am very interested, but I have another fava (also from Quebec)
theextremegardener.com/?p=226 that I need to increase more before I can give it a year off to trial a different fava. It would be interesting to grow them side by side...

[12540dumont]

Fava beans cross really easily.

[canadamike]

I put them in the grown almost as soon as it can be worked, around pea time. I have not grown loads of them yet, and only a few years in a row many years back. A friend multiply thems for me right now.

I don't know about the roasting of the beans to replace coffee like you write about in your blog, but it sure is interesting.

I intend to grow more next year to test them as nitrogen fixers in a crop rotation, they are said to be very effective at that. Plus you get a decent crop to eat, although p.vulgaris are hard to beat at that ( in terms of harvest per space unit).

[raymondo]

Aug 10, 2011 20:22:20 GMT -5 canadamike said:

I intend to grow more next year to test them as nitrogen fixers in a crop rotation, they are said to be very effective at that. Plus you get a decent crop to eat, although p.vulgaris are hard to beat at that ( in terms of harvest per space unit).

So, for dry beans, do you generally get more kilograms per metre of row from Phaseolus vulgaris than from Vicia faba?

[canadamike]

P vulgaris for sure. The fava is a big plant. You could put 8-10 vulgaris in the space taken by one fava. Mind you, I use wide rows, and fava, with its bulk, is kind of a single row plant. But P vulgaris does not have the big deep root system of favas. Not much clay break up with our regular bean.