Fava or broad bean

Image via WikipediaUp Plants A-Z

Field bean = Vicia faba

This is one of my favorite crops to grow. Ah, how nice and sweet their flowers smell! When the winter is long and you're waiting for spring and you can finally jump into your garden, this is one of the first vegetables you can start with. They can handle frost so you can sow them already in February, in a greenhouse or inside in front of a window to plant them out later, or directly outside. With this plant, you have very little risk that things go wrong. Don't use fresh manure and apply the tips below. For my special Dutch speaking friend who is interested in gardening: the Dutch name is: tuinboon.


Articles

• How to grow broad beans
• How to grow fava beans - video
  
• Planting broad beans now - (November) - As broad beans are frost hardy, it’s easy to grow them through the winter, either outside or under the cover of a garden frame.
  
• Vicia faba - "Vicia faba, the Broad Bean, Fava Bean, Field Bean, Bell Bean or Tic Bean, is a species of bean (Fabaceae) native to north Africa and southwest Asia, and extensively cultivated elsewhere." - Wikipedia
• What are fava beans?
  

Medicinal properties

• Fava Beans, Levodopa, and Parkinson's Disease
• Food, allergies, medicinal properties
• Health Benefits Of Fava Bean
  

Sowing distance

• 4 x 30 inch - 10 x 80 cm
  

Recipes

• Fava Beans are the most popular food in Bourges
• Fresh broadbeans salad
  
• Garlic & tomato squid with spinach & broad beans
  
• Weekday Vegetarian: Fantastic Fava Bean Puree
  
• Weekday Vegetarian: Pasta with Fava Beans and Pecorino Romano
  

Seed time

• III-IV (it is possible to sow them in late autumn)
  
• Broad bean plants started under glass or over-wintered in a protected location are ready for harvest in mid-spring.

Tips

• Sow together with dill against blackfly
• Take out the tops when the plant is blossoming. This will prevent blackfly to eat up your plants. You can stir fry the tops in hot oil or butter. Very delicious!
• The field bean subspecies is an excellent plant for green manure
  

Videos

• Research topics: Broad beans - Playlist

Up Plants A-Z