I prepare my beans by sauté-ing them in salted butter with some garlic scapes. When the bright green colour emerges through the skin, they are ready. What a treat!

No, I’ve never gotten 3 sisters to work very well either.

Most of the problems I’ve had have been pretty obvious and basic ones. For example having a corn variety that didn’t grow high enough to support the beans. Another year I was in a new garden, and I didn’t realize I had chosen a particularly weedy spot with poor soil, so everything got overtaken by weeds and didn’t grow well. That time I also planted everything too close together, and it wasn’t possible to get into the bed to pull weeds. Also one time I waited too long to plant the beans, and they got shaded by the other plants.

I think if you think through everything, and plan it carefully it should work:

Make sure you have grown beans on that spot recently, because beans require bacteria in the ground to do well.

Make sure not to crowd the plants, and allow access for weeding.

Make sure to grow a tall variety of corn.

Make sure to choose varieties suited to your climate and local growing conditions.

Make sure to choose a vine squash or other curcubita, and not the bush type.

Make sure to use pole beans, and not the bush type.

—

These things might sound obvious, but I think it all mostly comes down to planning it right.

I hope this helps…

The life-cycle of rye is about a year. What can be a little handy is it’s 6 months out of sync from most other things because it’s fall planted. Rye has a wonderful, deep, root system that brings lot’s of important nutrients to the surface and harbors lots of soil life like worms and insects. The roots can go to 6ft or more. It’s a great cover crop, and it’s root system is so dense it chokes out most other weeds, but for that reason you can’t plant into it until it’s life-cycle is complete or you turn it under.

Yes, the nitrogen will be available from the favas for the corn, but it might be better to use a warm weather bean like a normal pole bean, maybe even a ‘cornfield bean’.

The reason for this is there are two ways the corn can get nitrogen from beans. The first is, as is the case with the favas, is the beans can grow first and the corn can use the leftover nitrogen. The second way, as would be the case with a warm weather bean grown at the same time, would be the roots co-mingle and the beans would fed the corn while they both grew.

This second way, where the roots co-mingle, is more efficient and overall more nitrogen will be fixed into the ground. Also, if everything goes right, you don’t need poles for the beans, because the beans can climb the corn. This is the principle behind Three Sisters. Like I’ve said before, this can take some trial and error to get working right.

Good luck, whatever you do.

Did you plant your rye last fall, and is it still growing?

The rye will have a very dense root system that’s probably too much for the favas. The rye will go to seed and die off mid to late summer, and you probably won’t be able to plant directly into it until then. To be completely safe, I wouldn’t count on being able to plant directly into the still living rye cover until fall.

You might be able to skip the fava beans, and just do corn after the rye is finished? You can probably plant this directly into the rye cover, if you pull the rye back a little by hand where you put the corn seeds in? This is just a guess, I haven’t tried this. It’s possible the rye won’t finish before it’s time to plant the corn.

Otherwise, you probably need to turn the rye under first.

As far as following the favas with corn, botanically speaking it should work, they should make good companion plants if they aren’t too crowded. You will need to think about adequate spacing, and you do need to consider the mature fava plants are big and may shade out the young corn plants. It might take a little trial and error to get working right…

Otherwise, if you have just planted your rye, you could wait until fall to plant favas into the rye cover, then try planting the corn into the favas the following summer. Or is this what you were suggesting in the first place? I think this would probably work. but again might take a little trial and error.

Hope this helps…

Thanks for your comment.

Yes, 10F is pretty cold for fava beans, but it depends on a lot of things. For example if the plants have emerged yet, and how much snow cover there is. It also depends on the variety, as some are more winter hardy than others. I wouldn’t assume overwintering in your climate is impossible, but it might take a little trial and error to get it working. The advice of planting in Feb also sounds good to me, and is probably more reliable than overwintering.

If you want to turn the plants under you should do it when they are very young, and not more than a few inches high, probably April or May. If the plants are too woody than you should compost them first before putting into the ground. I personally don’t usually turn fava beans under, because I find this a bit of a waste.

I normally let them grow and either eat them or save seeds, compost the plants, then put the compost back into the ground. In this way they are both useful for seeds or food, and useful for enriching the ground. Also over the years I’ve decided in general it’s better to use no-dig techniques, and this is of course in conflict with digging in a green manure crop.

Ianto’s Yellow? I’ve never grown it, but heard good things about it. It was grown and introduced by Alan Kapuler, who lives near you in Corvallis, so would probably be well suited to your climate.

I live in Holland, and the varieties available here are ones you probably can’t buy, and are probably better suited for our local climate. I think it’s better if you look for varieties locally and ask other near you what their favorites are.

It’s difficult to say when you would be able to plant the next crop after the favas. Heirloom varieties of fava will produce over a period of time, and stop when the weather gets very warm. This might be in June, but could also be in August. I think you can count on August for sure, but otherwise it might be a bit of a judgment call, and you might need to weigh your need to get the next crop in with your desire to get everything possible out of your fava plants first.

Good luck. I hope this helps.

I would like to grow fava beans as a cover crop and some for eating/seed saving. I live in southern Oregon where winter temperatures will get as low as 10 degrees f. I think this means I cannot reliably over winter them. My local ag extension mentioned planting them in February. If planted in February when would be the best time to turn them under for a green manure? If I keep some for eating how soon could I harvest to make space for another crop? June? Do you prefer any specific varieties? I have read ‘Iants Yellow’ is a delicious variety. Thanks Brian.

I’ll bet you have great fava beans in Rome! I’m going to come over to your house for dinner tomorrow, okay?

About planting them, I don’t have very good news. I don’t think it will work, because for seeds the fava beans need to mature on the plant. I don’t think fresh fava beans are mature enough.

You could try to just plant them, or maybe put a few into wet kitchen paper and see if they sprout.

In general fava beans like it best if they are planted as early in the spring as you can dig the ground. Then, as the weather warms, they slowly begin to grow. If you plant them this way, they can usually tolerate short periods of warm weather. This is also what makes fava beans a spring vegetable, and in general you can’t buy them in season other times of the year. Probably the numbers of hours of daylight the plants get has something to do with it too.

If you plant fava beans later, they may still grow, but the chances are they will do better if the weather is cooler.

Warmer weather makes the plants grow faster, which isn’t healthy for them.

I’ve never tried to grow fava beans in warm weather myself, but my guess is once the days are consistently above 20C (68F) it’ll be pretty hard to grow them.

Maybe someone else has more experiences with this? I’d like to hear.