Fava Beans in the Sustainable Garden
Fava bean plants make an ideal addition to a sustainable landscape. In addition to their role in enriching your palate and diet, fava beans also enrich your soil through the nitrogen fixing bacteria that live on their roots. Plant fava beans in the fall, and they will protect your soil throughout the winter by preventing soil erosion from wind and water and by holding water in the soil. Once fava bean pods have been harvested, the succulent stems and leaves of the fava bean plant can be chopped into pieces and incorporated into a compost pile or dug directly into the soil to add significant amounts of biomass. Fava beans can also be grown as a cover crop in orchards to help increase soil health and fertility. When planted as a cover crop in orchards, fava beans can be cut down and dug directly into the root zone of the trees.
In order to obtain the maximum amount of nitrogen from your fava bean crop, dig fava beans into the ground before plants have created bean pods. This has the disadvantage of not being able to harvest fava beans from these plants, but it has the advantage of being able to capture and retain nearly half of the nitrogen captured in the fava bean plants.
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