~Sunday, December 9, 2012
My mom makes a delicious pasta
dish with fava beans from her garden.
Around the end of April when it’s time to pick them, she leaves a couple
of plants untouched for their seeds, allowing the beans to dry in their pods. They are then shelled and left to continue
drying on a paper dish for another week; and lastly, placed in a sealed plastic
container in the pantry until the next planting season in the middle of
November.
I have had many requests for
blogs on my mom’s gardening tips, so let’s get these beans in the ground first,
and her pasta recipe will have to be continued in a future blog--I promise!
To plant fava beans:
1. Dig a trench approximately 15 feet long and
five inches in depth.
2. Mix the garden soil with a bag of “Planting
Mix and Mulch” using a shovel; water trench well.
3. Place three fava beans every 12 inches into
the trench, pressing lightly into soil. (My
mom makes 13 placements because it’s a lucky number in Italy!)
4. Using a small garden tool, cover beans with
two inches of soil, patting down lightly; water again until the soil is fully
saturated.
To care for fava beans:
1. Keep soil moist by watering trench every
third day.
2. You should start seeing the plants growing
within two weeks. When they are roughly
two feet tall you will need to support them with garden stakes. (Or
plant them next to a fence like my mom does that she can tie them to.)
3. They should grow to a height of four feet and
are usually ready to pick by the end of April.
(They should be firm to the touch.)
4. Remove beans from their pods, as well as
their first layer of skin using a small paring knife. (Yes, each bean! This process takes A LOT of patience—and
that’s coming from my mom!!)
5. Store beans in a sealed bag in the
refrigerator if planning to cook them the same week, or in vacuum-food sealers
in the freezer.
My mom’s parting words at the
end of our ‘Fava Bean’ session together were, “You have to really like fava
beans to go through the shelling process.” My last words: If you’ve had
the pasta dish she prepares them with—trust me—you would LOVE them!
