Eat The Yard

I marched into our front yard this week with the intent of tearing out the fava beans that grow there.

It’s not just that these beans hadn’t done anything for me lately — they hadn’t done anything, ever.  I originally sowed this supposed cool-season crop in November, when San Diego finally begins to give cool weather a try (not cold exactly, but cool).  I planted Aquadulce Fava Beans, and they grew bushy, strong stalks that needed staking right away.  But January came and went with no beans, as did February, March, and April.  For a 75 – 90-day variety, 165 days seemed too long.

The plant had also become a sprawling mess that took over the space near our porch, crowding out other plants, blocking a short stone path.  I inadvertently encouraged this sprawl by planting the beans with a wall at their back: While they received full sun, it only came from one direction, causing the plants to reach.  The wall also only allowed for growth on one side of the support.  The uneven weight of it had destroyed one trellis and had begun to tip and tweak the sturdier, custom trellis I built for my warm-season beans — the Dragon Tongues, Kentucky Wonders, and Scarlet Emperors — back when I believed the cool-season beans would be done before it got warm.

A menace, the fava beans had to go.

But when I lifted the first stalk to cut it, I found them: meaty, fibrous pods, some of which had grown eight inches long and an inch-and-a-half wide.  Instead of cutting, I ended up propping with a few sturdy bamboo poles.  I trimmed out a few sickly stalks and then individually fastened the rest to the trellis, exposing more and more beans with each move.

The likely culprit for the 165-day growing period (and it’s not over yet) is San Diego, which seems to defy planting standards at every opportunity.  With the fava bean — known elsewhere in the world as the broad bean — it’s a winter cool season crop in mild climates and a spring cool season crop in colder zones.  It prefers 70- to 80-degree weather and is neither heat nor frost tolerant, dropping flowers at 85 and 35 degrees.  We don’t get frost in our part of town, but we can have an 85-degree day any time of year.  However, such heat less likely November – February, which is the time period I chose for growing our Aquadulce.  But I have read that fall-planted fava beans can take 200 – 240 days to mature.

Six months seems like a long time to wait for a bean I’ve never tasted.  But, there’s no reason to uproot a producing crop — so I’ll just have to find somewhere else for the summer beans I have sitting in pots, seeking for something to climb.

Tags: winter crop