more crimson fava bean photos

crimson fava beans

My fava beans are starting to bloom! These are the crimson flowered ones from Dan at Urban Veggie Garden Blog in Toronto. I am so excited to see these bright flowers. So for, most are just budded. I'm sure I will get better photos of these later.

fava seedlings

These are crimson flowered fava beans. The seeds were collected and sent to me by Dan. I planted them on March 17 - St Patrick's Day. I love the full roundness of the leaves. Prettier then regular favas it seems. I'm looking forward to the red flowers.

planting peas and favas

I did get my peas planted on Wednesday - St Patrick's Day. I planted three rows:

Sugar Sprint (Johnny's) snap pea, 2 ft vines, 58 days
Caselode shelling pea (Johnny's), shelling pea, 2 1/2 ft vines, 57 days
RSVPea (Burpee) shelling pea, 3 1/2 ft vines, 56 days

And I planted a block of crimson-flowered fava beans that Dan grew and hand-collected.

I had some "help" from the canine crew. Bannor, my brother's dog who's here for the week, was especially interested. I thought it was great that he wanted to check out the seeds - Skippy has never shown much interest. But he wasn't only sniffing, he popped a fava seed in his mouth and enjoyed crunching on it for quite a while. Oops. I covered them up more quickly after that!

I also spread some cover crop seed on beds that I will use for corn and squashes this year. This is an experiment as I don't know if it will grow much before I turn the soil.

ready for the grill

We're now eating dinner almost totally from the garden. Just a piece of salmon from the store. The favas are great grilled whole and then popped out of their shells, like edamame. The potatoes and wonderful sliced and grilled with olive oil and salt. We have a big red Gold and a big Red Norland today - one yellow the other white on inside and slightly different tastes and consistency. And of course a zucchini.

fava recipe

Just a quick bookmark for myself since I'm planning to go out to my plot tomorrow and pick a few more fava beans: A Recipe for Grilled Fava Beans. Nice fresh favas are good pod and all. Or you can pop out the beans from their skins.

fava beans are ripe

The first ripe fava beans are at the back off my little patch and I didn't see them until I was walking by outside the garden. So I reached my hand through the fence and picked a couple. The young ones are yummy on the grill.

fava flowers

These just starting blooming. My fava bean crop will be late this year because I planted very late.

grilled favas

We have been eating the young beans whole and shelling the older ones. Marinate in oil, garlic and herbs. Then grill. Delicious!

cooking fava beans

My favas continue to produce lots of beans! A prolific crop. I am experimenting with recipes to see what I like best. Here is my favorite so far:

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Favas, spring onions and corn

Prepare favas by shelling larger beans and cutting smaller ones into 1 inch lengths. Sauté favas in butter and olive oil until they start to brown, about 2 minutes on high heat. Add fresh corn cut off the cob and chopped green onions. Sauté another minute or so.
Vicia faba
Fabaceae

favas

The fava beans are growing! I have to get my recipe ready soon. Yummy...
Vicia faba

fava blossoms

Last year I planted fava beans (broad beans) for the first time. I was served delicious grilled fava beans at the East Coast Grill and was determined to grow some myself! I planted them in my shady home garden. But they were totally eaten by black aphids before the beans formed. This year, I planted them at my community plot which has incredibly full sunlight. NO APHIDS YET!!! The plants are blooming and I'm keeping my fingers crossed....

Vicia faba

transplanted fava beans

This weekend my sister helped me transplant some fava bean sprouts to my community garden plot. At last there are green plants in my plot! I also have a nice rhubarb plant starting to sprout in the corner.

I sowed the fava beans in my home garden - half on March 18 and half on April 11, using a fava bean inoculant.

I hope they will do better for me this year than last year. Last spring, I planted them in my home garden without inoculant and they were completely overcome by aphids. Then I planted them again in the fall and they were killed by the frost before producing any beans. So far, these look good. I've saw some very nice fava bean crops in other plots at Rock Meadow last year, so I know it can be done.

Vicia faba

fall fava beans

I'm trying again with fava beans. Early this spring I planted a crop that was overcome by black aphids. Since I had some seeds left over, I thought I'd try again this fall. I planted the last of my seeds September 19, a month ago. I now have 20 small plants from about 30 seeds. And the best thing - NO APHIDS!

I'm curious to see if I'll get any beans from these late plants. Time to harvest for favas is about 85 days. That would be December 13. Favas are pretty cold tolerant (down to 0F), but I'm wondering if they grow and produce beans at cold temperatures. I figure gardening by the trial-and-error-method is a good way to learn what works in my garden.

Last year, my garden's first hard frost was November 21 (a low of 31F). The plants I covered survived this one and grew until early January when temperatures plummeted. It seems every year, our fall is a little warmer.

Vicia faba
harvests from my vegetable gardens

fava crop failure

My favas are gone. I pulled them up today. Though the lady bugs have arrived, the fava beans were just too stunted from black aphid damage to leave growing. (I almost pulled the adjacent pole beans too. These also have aphid damage, but seem to be recovering. I left them for now.) In place of the favas, I planted a mix of sunflower seeds.

I am glad to see the lady bugs, even though they are the big Asian type. They will help to control the green aphids on many of the plants in my garden.


Vicia faba

fava flowers

Fava beans (broad beans) are a new crop for me this year. I'm looking forward to grilling some tender fresh beans. I have one 3.5 foot row of about 10 plants back behind my pole beans. This week they've started to bloom. Big black and white flowers on plants that are about 2 or 2.5 feet tall.

There are still a lot of black aphids on the plants. The aphids are on the top couple inches of the plants. Once I get another set of flowers, I'll cut off the tops of the plants to reduce the aphids and let the plants put all of their energy into making beans.
Vicia faba

favas

This crop is a new one for me. My fava beans are now about two feet tall and are starting to lean over. I was figuring the fence would support them but they have no tendrils. Maybe I'll need to tie them to it or support the stems with branches.

I have also found lots of black aphids on the upper parts of the plants. It turns out that favas are often infested by black aphids. Maybe its time to order some lady bugs? I'll watch as see what happens.

Vicia faba

favas are growing

I was concerned because my fava beans seem to be taking a long time to sprout. I planted them on April 21. That's 2 weeks ago (15 days). I dug up one seed and the good news is its doing great. A very long (4 inch?) root and a good sprout. I replanted it and checked and found that many more sprouts are about 1 cm below the surface. I should be more patient. These are in the coldest area of my garden. My guess is the soil is still only about 45 or 50F there.

Vicia faba

inoculant

A fellow garden blogger (Patrick at Bifurcated Carrots) recommended I try inoculant for my peas and beans this year. Last year I had a miserable crop of both and was ready to give up, on the peas at least. But, here I am, giving it one more try. This year with inoculant. Its the first time I've ever used this, so I did some research.

The inoculant I used is garden combination inoculant from Johnny's Selected Seeds, called N-Dure. It contains a mix of rhizobium bacteria: rhizobium leguminosarum viccae, rhizobium leguminosarum phaseoli, and bradyrhizobium sp.

Bradyrhizobium sp. treats lima beans, rhizobium leguminosarum viccae treats fava beans and garden peas, and rhizobium leguminosarum phaseoli treat dry beans and string beans. I don't think this mix includes the bacterium needed by soybeans (bradyrhizobium japonicum), but I will use it with my soybeans anyway in case it helps. Here's a chart for what treats what.

What's inoculant? Here's some excerpts from an informative fact sheet: "The ability of legumes to 'fix' nitrogen depends on the presence of special soil bacteria, known
as rhizobia, which invade the roots of legumes to form nodules. Within the nodules the bacteria convert, or fix, nitrogen from air pockets within the soil into forms useful to the legume plant. When the legume plant decays, the fixed nitrogen becomes available to subsequent crops. The fixed nitrogen is released slowly, often over a period of several years.

Each legume species has a specific rhizobial requirement. For example, rhizobia that infect medics are different from those that infect clover, peas or lupins. If the correct strain of rhizobia for a particular legume is absent in the soil or in very low numbers, effective nodulation will not occur and little, if any, nitrogen will be fixed. In this case the correct strain of rhizobia must be supplied at sowing. This process is known as inoculation.

Inoculation is essential when a legume crop or pasture plant is new to the land on which it is being sown. Once an effectively nodulated legume crop or pasture has been grown, and the rhizobia have been established in the soil, there is no need for inoculation with rhizobia in future seasons".

I've read that chlorinated water kills the inoculated rhizobia, so I'm hoping mine do OK. I had to water a few times last week using our chlorinated tap water. But generally, we've had good rainfall this spring. So far, my pea germination has been great!

Fabaceae
Pisum sativum

topic: soil