This just a FYI, as allergies to the fava bean do exist, but are VERY rare, so please keep this info in perspective. Toxic Part: Seeds, raw or cooked and pollen when inhaled. Symptoms: In susceptible humans, within a few minutes of inhaling pollen or several hours after eating the beans, an allergic reaction occurs with dizziness, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and sheer prostration. Blood appears in the urine, which turns reddish-brown to black. Anemia develops within a few hours or a day. Male children are the most frequently affected and apparently all fatalities have been children." The good doctors also state, "Favism, the severe hemolytic anemia, occurs only in susceptible individuals who have inherited a deficiency of an enzyme, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. This genetic trait occurs among people of the Mediterranean region and among black Africans. Most individuals have this enzyme and are not affected." [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/09/HOGOJBLDVF1.DTL] Sue

Not familiar with fava beans. Buts I do grow winter rye as a green manure and cover crop. As soon as my vegetables crops are harvested, I sow winter rye. Winter rye grows very quickly, by the time l winter hits the rye is already protecting the soil, then in spring,I wait till the pollen drops but before the seed sets, and weedwack it down and use it as mulch.. It crucial to know when to cut your cover crop down. For example, if I cut my winter rye before the pollen dropped, it would not die, but grow vigorously to complete its lifecycle and set seed. I recommend that you do not till your soil.. Tilling soil is a quick fix, that leads to tons of problems in the long run.. I never till my soil and always mulch! It's all about the mulch! Here is a video about a man who never fertilizers, tills, or even waters his garden! If you look at nature, she never tills, and always has something covering the ground, there is never bare soil! Its all about mulching the soil. You're growing a cover crop, your already in a step in the right direction.. Just don't take a step back and till your ground! Hope this helps, Joe Here is a link that might be useful: True Permaculture

Nobody in this area of the country will forget that "once-in-a-hundred-years" freeze we had last Easter! I plant by how the weather feels... with one eye on the calendar, but I believe more how soil and air feels and stuff like how far the oaks have leaved out. "Plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear", etc. Frost hardy salad greens were in regular harvest stage and they were all fine. However, I had Black Aztec sweet corn 4 inches tall, assorted summer squash at first true leaves, Red Pontiac potatoes coming up well, all varieties strawberries blooming, figs had leaved out already, Super Sugar Snap peas a foot high... then we're being told it will be 25 degrees tonite!! Ron and I were able to cover most of the strawberries with heavy plastic sheeting (for me to remove early next morning when temp rose above freezing), and I dropped 3 gallon plastic nursery pots over the squash and potatoes (some 8 inches high). Next morning I took mental notes, and I immediately ordered more corn seed. I watched and waited on somewhat damaged squash; they stood still; I replanted beside them, and the new seedlings outgrew those that had "survived" the frost. Biggest potatoes had to resprout and were late and I eventually pulled them to make way for next crop. Those just emerging were fine with the makeshift protection and produced a crop. Strawberries at outside of beds were frozen, but a lot in center were OK... I figgered I lost 35% of the crop. Figs leafed out again and fruited a month late; Peas froze to ground, but most plants sent up base shoots, and I got a crop after all. My soybeans did not come up, and I found them as rotted mush, frozen with their bent necks less than 1/2 inch from emerging! The rest of the seed was planned to follow the corn first of July, but with start-over making corn late, I never got to plant soybeans last year. When I went to plant replacement corn, I kept find roots obviously still alive. I tossed out the first few, but then I got curious and left them in the ground. A fair percentage (35 - 40%??) sent up new shoots and cropped, altho later than the replants beside them. Mostly a nuisance to a gardener, but shows that variety would survive as a species even with a late frost some years. Worse news on trees. No acorns; no persimmons; no tree fruits of any kind around here (except my figs!). Trees did recover but a major amount of wildlife winter food was lost forever. Black walnuts sleep late in the spring, and they were fine. My antique roses (mostly Rugosas, Gallicas, Albas, Noisettes, Hybrid Musk)simply regrouped, leafed out again. The one-time bloomers (Albas and Gallicas) lost most of their flowering capacity for the year; the other groups are remontant; they just regrouped and flowered as usual, but a month later. Most hardy perenniel flowers and bulbs were not significantly affected. Your woodchuck recipe - still laughing! Back in the last century, I was joking about writing a cookbook for sale at local tourist traps: HOW TO COOK YOUR GARDEN PESTS. Most garden raiders can be found in game cookbooks, even a few with more than 4 legs. I did the research, but I ain't crazy about dressing out warm-blooded animals. Dressing woodchucks: The smell, the general ugliness, and that very tough skin that almost repelled my knife. I pretty soon figgered out something else I wanted to do worse that morning... My first almost-dinner woodchuck very shortly turned into deer repellant tossed under the tree where the herd gathers to lay up during the day and plot their night raids on my ripening corn. Assassinated feral cats (my neighbor feeds a population of them!)are also used for deer repellent. Anybody caught playing "lion at the waterhole" with birds at my birdbath will be offered a trail of canned mackeral leading into the Hav-a-Hart and will quietly disappear forever. Possums I drive 10 miles and turn loose; rabbits I just turn out locally. But woodchucks just eat too much too fast, plus they dig under my cages and barriers. One way trip for them, too. Fortunately woodchucks have 3 Achillies heels: too stupid to change their paths once discovered; day feeders so I can find them eating and see where they run so I know where to set the trap; one litter a year, so I can often get Mama and all the kits in 36 hours or so, and they're history until another one moves in. I check DAILY for signs of feeding everywhere I have a crop planted.... sometimes I'm still too late! I would expect them to taste a lot like wild bunnies and squirrels? Confirm, please. My brother in Wyoming supplies us with top-quality venison every year as a Christmas gift, and often include a few other sundry species. But as long as Arkansas whole fryers keep going on sale for 49 cents a pound, the pest cook book will probably stay on the back burner. Gee, not a word about fava beans in this one... note they are still fine today... in 54 degree sun and wind, with rain and cold on the way again... Jan

Three weeks since my last posting... MUCH MORE TO REPORT. Anybody who watches national news knows this has been a spring to test the toughness of our plants and the patience of all serious gardeners. NOTE: all my legumes are innoculated before sowing. I have Fava bean Aquadulce of 3 ages in one row now. All were from same seed lot. Their soil and location: partially improved clay loam, but low enough on hill that feet stay wet 1-2 days longer than they would if 100 yards farther up the hill. Full sun and wind and rain... totally exposed to all elements. Direct seeding of January 9 is now 10 inches tall and making flower buds. Those hatched inside in large cups and transplanted: only 2 survivors. They are 6 inches tall and not yet making flower buds. Direct sowing of February 24 is 6 inches tall and shows same development as the two transplanted plants. Direct seeding of March 15 (last planting date for Pisum here)came up in 2 1/2 weeks (instead of a month)and they are 4 inches tall with 2 sets of leaves. NOW ... A POSSIBLE PROBLEM, but I can't identify the condition from what books I have on plant diseases. The older plants (January and February sowings)are lighter green... and some are showing just the beginning of drying up edges on their upper leaves. Those planted March 15 are still bright green. Those black aphids that I've been led to expect ... they're on the way. I saw 2 winged adults, and 3 plants had ants looking for a place to farm their "cows". The planting of Feb 24 that is watered by dripline of a small shed (thus effect of standing in water for 2 1/2 days when the rains produced the Midwest floods of mid-March.) Variety is the Grano White, an early large variety from Italy. This is a sunny south-of-building, full sun exposure with sun reflected off light colored siding, protected from prevailing northwest winds and vegetation to south breaks any wind from that direction. They came up just as the heavy rains ended, a couple of days before the same date planting in open site farther down the hill. They are now 8 - 10 inches tall, still bright green and look good. However, there are specks of black / thin black edges on their upper leaf margins. Their soil is heavy clay with almost no improvement, but site drains fast because it is near top of hill and the slope is 1 yard drop per 50 feet. No signs of aphids here yet. Other legumes that are up and how they are doing. Lentils (my first attempt). They were 2 days in ground when the heavy rains came... on a hill top in soil developed with considerably organic applications in late 1980's. The row washed, but they came up a near perfect stand... 3 inches tall and still look healthy. Garbanzo beans... planted a couple days before the heavy rains as single seed sticks in clay with some organic development. About 1/3 came up... and it took them 3 weeks! I presume most to have been washed in so deep they could not find the sun in time. Those up are 3" tall and growing rapidly. Variety is Black Kabouli from Baker Creek>Afghanistan originally. Snap peas -- 3 varieties. Those planted February 24 came up well and are now 8 inches (Amish Snap) and 12 inches tall (Golden Pea from India). A planting of Super Sugar Snap on March 15 was badly eroded by the heavy rains and many washed in too deep. Spotty stand, but those who came up are now 6 inches tall and growing fine. Planted before the announcement of the last few days unexpected cold... and still not up: 2 seeds Insuk's Wang Kong in chat with some organics; Scarlet Runner was sucessful and survived winter in that location a decade ago. Adzuki beans (per time advice for my region in S. Ashworth's SEED TO SEED), Agate Soybeans. Planting of this time period of another variety soybean in 2007 would have come up... except that the Easter Freeze destroyed them less than 1/2 inch from emerging! This planting was made within by my County Extension Agent's suggested earliest time window for this area. Agate chosen because it originated in New Mexico (hotter than I am and generally dryer as well), is early to mature, and it went into ground newly broken this year and nearly raw clay / rock, where no water will be available. Plenty of soil moisture right now, and seeds are sited to use "basin" method of SW Pueblo Indians. greentongue aka Jan Foothills of the Ozark Mountains in Northeast Arkansas