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Fava Beans for Fun, Food and Fertility

Posted on by Terri Wilde

Fava Beans are Fun!!  I love fava beans, the way they grow so straight and tall with just gorgeous flowers.

Fava Beans, otherwise known as Broad Beans (Vicia faba) are in the Bean Family (Fabaceae) but are a different genus than pinto and kidney beans.  They can be planted earlier and later than those Phaseolus species beans.  Favas are often planted as a cover crop as they, like all legumes, can fix nitrogen with the bacterial nodules in their roots able to take nitrogen from the air and “fix” it into the soil for plants to use.  So you are improving your garden soil, growing a beautiful flower and growing a hearty bean to eat, all at the same time. Favas are flatish circles, or can be small and round, and can be brown, yellowish, green or even this luscious deep purple, depending on variety.  I plant them in batches in the early spring. They seem to take their time coming up, but it’s worth the wait.

Fava beans can be eaten freshly cooked, taking the beans out of their spongy pod. Some people slip off the skins on the bean seed, but I never saw the point, as I enjoy them just fine, lightly boiled and then slathered in butter.  They can also be dried to preserve them and then reconstituted and cooked as pinto beans.  My Mexican friend says they roast fresh fava beans until they are crunchy and eat them with salt and cayenne, like potato chips (los habas).

Some people have favism, a hemolytic response to the consumption of broad beans, a condition linked to a metabolic disorder. so be cautious if you haven’t eaten them before.

Terri Wilde

Grow What You Eat, Eat What you Grow

Posted on by Brian Kerkvliet

Put your energy into growing plants that you want to eat. You will soon discover yourself planting your garden and planning future menus simultaneously. If you like Asian food, plant plenty of Asian greens, Japanese bunching onions and daikon radishes. Most Asian vegetables thrive in spring and fall. Summer growing requires plenty of water and harvesting them before they bolt.

Tomatoes and peppers are worth the fuss. The taste of a vine ripened tomato is superior, fresh or made into tomato or chili sauce. Plan to start seeds March and transplant in May or early June. Market gardeners have their seed orders in by November. We can at least be on the lookout for online seed companies, swaps with friends, and whatever we can save ourselves.

The best eggplants for this climate are the small, short season ones, such as Little Fingers. Heirloom eggplant Casper will go seed to seed. Eggplants are staple of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes.

We love our sweet Walla Walla onions. Walla Wallas are planted in fall to overwinter and ripen the next summer. They need consistent water as they mature.

Seed Saving Summer 2022

Posted on by Brian Kerkvliet

Hi Garden Friends, this year’s seed harvest is starting. We harvested snap peas and parsnips. The parsnip seed crop is amazing. Parsnips are delicious steamed, baked or in soup. Parsnip seed has a short shelf life, so we plan on giving it all away next spring.

There is still time to save seeds this summer. The herbs and flowers are flowering and forming seed heads. If you have peas or beans left on the plants, leave a few to dry down. Remember to save seed only from open pollinated varieties; hybrids don’t come true or may be infertile. You may have lettuce or kale that bolted in the heat. That is a great opportunity to save your own seed for next year.

We will be offering two workshops on seed saving again this summer. One will be on processing dry seeds, Follow the link for more information. The other will be on processing wet seeds such as tomatoes, stay tuned date yet to be set.

When you are out shopping, check for seeds on sale. You might want to buy favorites for next spring and store them somewhere dark, cool and dry over the winter. The seed industry is being challenged by erratic weather and convulsions in global trade.

That is all for now, Celt

Tool Call

Posted on by Brian Kerkvliet

Hello friends of the Community Salish Seed Garden! We seek your cast-aside functional and broken tools and seeding flats!!

We are in need of a good amount of tools to serve up to the volunteer army that will be participating in co-stewarding the new seed garden this Spring! Clicking on the link will bring you to the full list of tools, supplies, and services we are looking for from the community.

Don’t have anything to donate? Fear not! We will be repairing old broken tools and wheelbarrows too, in order to best stretch the generous donation dollars we have gotten from the community. Got a broken shovel, rake, garden fork, weeding tools, or whatsit laying around being useless in your garage? Let us know what you’ve got and we will try to breathe life back into it!

If you want to help us fix some tools and know how get in touch. If you don’t know how, but want to learn, that is fine too. We will be hosting a Tool Fixit event in the near future so stay tuned!

If you want to donate items you can drop them off at Inspiration Farm or contact us to make other arrangements.

Thank you all so much for your support and consideration!

Easy Beans!

Posted on by Brian Kerkvliet

The Gateway Crop to Seed Saving!

They are beautiful, easy to grow and easy to save seed. What a wonderful place to start.  Beans are easy because they are mostly self fertile, and so isolation from other varieties is less of a concern, and because when growing dry beans as a crop, the harvest is also the seed.  Make sure to wait to harvest the beans until the pods are dry and brittle on the vine and select seed from the healthiest plants and the largest, earliest and healthiest beans, and you are bound for success in seed saving.

I grow beans for the same reason people grow flowers, they are SO beautiful.

I love the plants and the flowers, but mostly I love the shiny jewel seeds that pop out of the pods at harvest.  I find Scarlet Runner Beans, with their big, bright mottled pink seeds to be satisfying in so many ways.  Eat them as green beans when they are young and tender, shelling beans fresh out of the pod, and mostly as dry beans, saved for winter soups and tortillas. They are delicious and nutritious and a little less work, due to their large size.

Plant beans direct in late spring when the soil warms, Mayish. Runner beans mature later than bush beans, so give them a good running start, but after it warms up. It is recommended to separate different bean varieties to avoid crossing but beans are mostly self pollinating and it has been my experience that they seem to remain true to type even when shamelessly planted all hodge-podge together. (Though I have seen a bit of crossing with the runner beans.)  Give your runner beans a good trellis and they will climb high. (Bamboo teepees, T-poles with string, a fence..)  Keep the soil moist while the baby beans are sprouting and irrigate when needed in summer.

To save seed, again, wait to harvest the beans when the pods are dry and brittle on the vine and select seed from the healthiest plants and the largest, earliest and healthiest beans. Dry thoroughly (in a paper bag in the sun or by the wood stove or in a gas oven off with the door cracked). Shuck before or after drying (in front of a good movie). Bean seed is dry enough to store when your tooth doesn’t make a dent in it while biting it.

Store in a glass jar in a cool, dark place. Label with year and type. Bean seed should stay viable for 3-5 years (or more).  Share and Replant.  “Magic Beans” make great gifts.

Contributed by Terri Wilde a homesteader, herbalist, community organizer, seed saver. Hawthorn Hearth Homestead

If you have a story or experience about your favorite seed varieties adapted for the Salish sea watershed, Contact us and we can help share it with the Salish Seed Guild.