Fava beans

Fava beans are fairly new for us; we've been growing them off and on, but never really processed many for cooking.  After trying once to peel the fussy little beans and getting a tiny bit of bean puree, it just seemed like too much work.  

But this year we grew Broad Windsor (from Territitorial seed), which produces really enormous beans, cutting down the work signficantly.  They say "quarter sized" and while I'm not sure if that's quite true, the beans are much thicker than a quarter.

The were very easy to grow; just stuck seeds in the ground in fall, and weeded a couple of times.  Only planted a small patch, less than 3' by 5'.

A hailstorm in May caused them to lie down, but didn't bother them particularly, though it did cause the patch up to take up quite a lot more
space. I had to tie them up so I could reach the back of the bed; the main path is overgrown with borage, which I'm leaving for the bees.

After the tomatoes and peppers are planted, I'm not as busy, so I've had time to pick favas.  So far we've got 15 pounds of pods but there's at least 10 pounds more left. 


To prepare fava beans, you shell them like peas. 


Then blanch briefly - I blanching in boiling water for 1 minute, then put in cold water to stop the cooking.  Then peel the skins from each and every bean - but after blanching, the skins just pop off.

My favas may be older and/or have thicker skins, but I've been piercing the skin with my thumbnail before squeezing out the bean. It's a lot of repetive work, but not unpleasant; it's rather like knitting.


The peeled beans are beautiful, bright green, and tender; they have a fresh flavor, a little pea-like but more savory than sweet. You can see in the picture the big container of discarded empty peels and the smaller container of vivid green favas, ready to cook.

By my calculations - which don't entirely agree with the internets - 10 pounds of fava bean pods would yield about 4 pounds of shelled beans and about 2.5 founds of peeled and ready to eat beans, maybe 7 cups.

I've been looking around the web for fava recipes, but it doesn't seem to be that challenging to cook with them.

There's the Alice Water's puree where you simmer the favas with garlic, rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper, then puree; it is delicious.  But a regular hummus is also delicious. 

We added them into a sauted with vegetables and served with pasta. 

I really think you could just put them in anything and they would be pretty and tasty and nutritious.  And from what I understand they freeze well.  We've had so much that I've been freezing the peeled beans.

It's so much fun to find a new vegetable that's tasty, easy to grow, and doesn't ripens when we have no time to care! Not that there isn't food out there - there are snow peas, a little broccoli, and lettuce, the cabbages are heading and the beets are nearly eating size.

Happy Earth Day!

We observe Earth Day by planting trees. This year: a standard apple and american persimmon, a gingko, elderberry, oregon grape, and willow down by the stream, and the Mirabelle plum in the flowering border. Also planted the mystery tree up by the street, where the fig didn't make it. The mystery tree came north with us but I have NO idea what it is... though the buds do look like those on the linden.

Today was very warm and sunny (and humid... after weeks of rain) so planting trees was mostly endurance. Especially the ones in the far pasture, since we have to ford the stream and cross soggy pasture with the wheelbarrows of dirt.

But when not planting trees in the hot sun, what a beautiful day! The bees are buzzing in the cherry tree,s maples, and kale (two of the three hives made it through the winter), birds are chirping and carrying on, everything is budding or blooming or growing.

The garden paths are built or cleared, and all are mulched. Planted potatoes, and mulched onions and other early plantings... the broccoli/cabbage was looking droopy but responded well to watering. Jay's working on a second door to the duck room, which will be used for the meat chickens that are now in the brooder (after the ducks move into the old coop). He's also working on fencing for the north-side pasture, but the grass is over knee-high so we'll have to get it mowed before sheep can deal with it. They will move out there sometime after the other two sheep give birth, which could be any day now.

Lost crops of the Incas

Consider the yacon.

I've been growing this for some years now.  It's easy to grow, fairly attractive plant, at the end of the season you get these large brown tubers to eat and small nobby red parts that easily keep inside overwinter to start next year's plants.

But we don't eat them.  They are kind of like a water-chestnut but more juicy, slightly sweet.  What to do with them?  Me, I put them in bags or buckets and they sit around until they go bad.

So again this year I'm following this system, and we got to the stage last weekend where one of the buckets of yacon that's been sitting in the garage since October got tossed into the compost pile Then yesterday, I ran through the pouring rain to harvest some kale to put in a salad, and I notice that the rain had washed clean the blackened, gnarly skins and they actually looked pretty good.  So I went to the not-yet-composted bag of yacon that was sitting in the den, and pulled one out and scrubbed and peeled it.  Wow... still good!  And the 5 months storage had made it much sweeter.  We sliced it and added it to the salad, where the texture was tender but juicy and a little crisp and the sweetness really came though.  It discolored a little even from kitchen to eating... but not badly enough to be a problem. This is my very first time eating yacon as part of a meal... or for that matter eating it while sitting down.

Yacon is one of the lost crops of the Incas, it's a sunflower relative that produced tubers.  In Ashland, I had tried - and failed both times - to grow Oca, a tuberous oxalis.  I have some tubers and will try again this year.  Since last year, I've had mashua growing, with mixed success; mashua is a tuber-forming type of nasturtium.  And I just purchased Ulluco, which is related to Malabar spinach; you can also eat the leaves so I feel happier about the possibilities, although Malabar spinach is, well, mucilaginous. 

These four tubers are among the Lost Crops of the Incas, a set of edible plants domesticated in the highlands of South America and described in a book of that name.  These plants would include the potato except that the potato is definitely not lost.  Besides many tubers, this includes Quinoa, Amaranth, Chilean Guava, Pepino and others.  The problem of growing many of them is that they are from high elevation tropics - the equator runs through Ecuador, after all - so while they are adapted to coolish temperatures, usually they don't take frost, and day length issues can cause problems.  For example, Oca just starts to form tubers when the days get shorter in fall, and may not form anything if the frosts come before they have time to do their thing.

The Ulluco came from Fry Road nursery in Albany, who produce a lot of greenhouse tropicals.  They have a number of other interesting tubers, like taro and canna root as well as coffee plants.  But given that it's taken me more than 5 years to go from growing to eating the yacon, and my list of as-yet-untasted lost crops; it's better not to try to push things too much....

The project that ate winter

I've been working on a Garden Resource Guide for East Linn County.  This is stuff I love - collecting information and spreading it around - but boy, I didn't realize how much time it would take.  But I'm very happy with the results.  I just hope that this information will be helpful for people!

We haven't started looking for a permanent online home for this - since it's done under TRFW, presumably their site, but since their website is kind of a blog I don't know how I'd integrate it.  But I put in on the farm site to stake a place.
http://www.fwfarm.com/trifolds/GRG-Linn-Spring2012.pdf

Meanwhile, while working with the rest of the TRFWEL group to get the information collecting, fact-checking and reviewing done, I've been using dropbox.  I don't get a kickback from them, but I really, really like it - such an easy way to share large files on the internet and between computers.

Now, back to the sadly-neglected spring garden work!  Over the last months or so we did get a bunch of trees, shrubs and groundcovers planted - probably two dozen; prepped and/or dug two garden beds, topped off with dirt and planted about 3/4 bed's worth (seeded roots and a few starts), and started 2 trays of cabbage family and lettuces.  But we are behind in garden prep and orchard attention, and the tomato and peppers will begin starting this week, eek!

Is it spring?

We've had some warmer weather the last couple of days, the frogs are making a lot of noise and the grass is starting to grow.  This afternoon I checked on the beehives, and all three hives had bees coming in and out, enjoying some sunshine.  Then this evening when I went out after dark to pick some kale for dinner.... the garden is full of... slugs!  And cutworms and even a few earwigs.  So I did the first slug pick of the year, into a jar to dispose of by duck in the morning.  Not many huge brown slugs, it was mostly the striped ones that don't get as big, but they were full size, many an inch and some two-inchers. The cutworms were fat and healthy looking.  In Portland the cutworms were a problem, but I saw more cutworms tonight than I've seen in the last decade.  But it really seems to early to have to deal with this, it's January.

For dinner: meatballs made of lamb heart, cooked with onions and garlic and kale and served over spaghetti squash.  That's the last of our "offal" from the sheep butchering, we ate liver and kidneys over the weekend, I think I've figured out how to cook these parts so they are pleasant in texture and flavor. The squashes are starting to go, at least the large ones have some spots, so we have to cut out bits before cooking.  The delicatas in the garage seem to keep better, maybe it's too cold in the "root cellar"  The onions are keeping well, but the garlic is getting dry, and the kale is at an awkward stage (as well having to inspect for slugs).  The onion and lettuce starts are spending their first night in the greenhouse tonight.  It does seem to be rolling along for spring.