Garden of Eatin' / How-To / Soil Fertility / Vegetables

Free Fertilizer! How to Grow Fava Beans as a Cover Crop

Free fertilizer! How to grow fava beans as a cover crop

In winter, a couple of my garden beds get less sun and stay more damp so it’s difficult to grow a food crop. I usually let the soil rest at this time, but by that I don’t mean I leave the garden beds bare.

Even if you only garden three seasons out of the year, you should never leave the soil exposed and empty.

Winter rains could lead to soil compaction, especially in hard clay soils. The earth could erode, washing nutrients away if there are no plants and roots to reign them in.

Some people simply throw a layer of mulch on the ground and call it good.

But I like to grow a cover crop—and I especially like to grow fava beans (a dual-purpose cover crop) as part of my overall lazy gardening strategy of more food, less work.

Fava bean plants supported with wire tomato cages and bamboo stakes

Benefits of growing fava beans as a cover crop

As a legume, fava beans fix nitrogen in the soil; that is, they put in more nitrogen than they take out.

As a cover crop, they improve soil texture, suppress weeds, support microbials in the soil food web, attract pollinators with their abundant flowers, and they’re even edible to boot.

They are the gift that keeps on giving, and all you have to do is plant them, then chop them.

Related: Cover Cropping the Easy Way: How to Grow Field Peas for Fertilizer

Fava bean stem with fava flowers

Fava beans are ideal plants for fall because they germinate quickly, thrive in cold weather, and are one of the few fruiting plants that tolerate shade.

They require minimum watering in winter, especially in wetter climates. And if your garden is less than perfect, rest assured that fava beans can easily be grown in deficient soil or clay soil (after all, their job is to make it better).

However, fava beans are happiest in rich loams with good drainage. At the very least, try not to let the plants stand in waterlogged soil for too long.

So even after knowing all this and thinking you don’t have the patience to shell fava beans, or you don’t like the taste of them… You should still grow fava beans as a cover crop (for your garden’s sake) and aim to get them in the ground between September and November, depending on the timing of your first freeze.

Related: Find First and Last Frost Dates Accurately with This Custom Planting Calendar

Broad bean leaves

How to plant fava beans in fall

Fava beans (Vicia faba, also called faba beans or broad beans) are actually not a bean but a type of vetch, a common cover crop and forage crop.

They’re cool-weather plants that should be sown directly in the garden in fall to enrich the soil for the following spring.

Though it isn’t necessary, you can soak fava bean seeds for a few hours to speed up germination. This is especially helpful if the weather is still dry when you plant and you want to ensure the seeds germinate.

Sow the seeds about 6 inches apart and 1 inch deep. Keep the soil consistently moist but not soggy.

Sprouts will appear that first week, and grow into 6-inch seedlings within a couple of weeks.

Broad bean seedling in the soil

Once they reach that height, add 2 to 3 inches of straw (or another organic mulch) around the plants, being careful not to pile the mulch against the stems (which could lead to rotting).

Aerial shot of fava bean plants mulched with straw

Fava beans are tall, thin, and top-heavy plants that require minimal staking as they mature so they don’t flop over under their own weight.

They’re well suited for those conical wire tomato cages that, ironically, don’t do a super job of supporting indeterminate tomato plants. But they’re fantastic for fava beans!

Worth a read: Grow Tomatoes Like a Boss With These 10 Easy Tips

You can also support them with bamboo teepees, or a combination of both for an aesthetically pleasing grouping.

A row of fava bean plants supported with wire tomato cages and bamboo teepees

Fava beans grow 3 to 6 feet tall and produce clusters of beautiful, orchid-like flowers. The flowers turn into dense green pods that sometimes reach 8 inches long or more.

Close-up of mature fava bean pod

With proper mulching, fava plants only need an inch of water a week, and sometimes less if they’ve had rain.

The leaves are susceptible to fungal rust, an airborne plant pathogen, so keeping them dry with good air circulation is important.

Like other legumes, fava beans do not need nitrogen fertilizer (assuming your soil is halfway decent—at most, you can amend with compost after you’ve pulled out last season’s plants).

They have the unique ability to work with the rhizobia in their roots to make nitrogen from the air, and over-fertilization may actually stunt production of the pods.

Artistic shot of fava bean flowers in the garden

When and how to turn fava plants into the ground

Once you’ve harvested all the beans (as well as the fava leaves and flowers, which are edible), you can prune the plant back to just a few inches above the ground.

Read more: 11 Vegetables You Grow That You Didn’t Know You Could Eat

I like to trim mine down to 6 inches, cutting just above the leaf nodes. This vigorous haircut, although a little scary at first, encourages new growth and you may get a second harvest of beans in the same season (especially if you choose an early variety that’s well adapted to your climate—see my recommendations in the last section).

Learn more: Days to Maturity: What It Really Means For Your Plants

Fava bean pods are still edible before they’re fully formed, and can even be eaten whole. So don’t worry if yours never reach their full mature size; the young pods are tender and delicious.

The following spring, after the last of your harvest, cut down all the plants but leave the roots to rot in situ (so they release nitrogen back into the soil).

At this stage, the stems are too woody to dig into the ground, so I simply compost all the stems and leaves.

Fava beans planted as a cover crop in the garden

How to use fava beans as green manure in spring

You can plant another fava bean crop in spring and repeat the process.

In mild climates, the seeds can be sown as early as late January. Fava beans grow best in daytime temperatures of 60°F to 65°F, so time your plantings accordingly in either season.

If you want to grow fava beans as green manure in spring (before you transplant heavy feeders like tomatoes and squash), cut down the plants at soil level while they’re in peak bloom. Dig them under a bit and spread a layer of mulch over the bed to maximize nitrogen retention.

(Note that leaving the decomposing plants near the surface provides slow-release nitrogen to new plants, while breaking them up and burying them several inches deep adds a quicker dose of nitrogen.)

Do the chop-and-drop about two to three weeks before you want to plant in the same spot. When your new seedlings are ready, you can just push the mulch aside to transplant.

Remember! Using fava bean plants as “free fertilizer” doesn’t mean you can skip fertilizer completely. But you may only need half as much nitrogen in an average season for heavy-feeding plants.

Live in a mild climate? Fava beans can be sown year-round in areas with Mediterranean-like weather (such as the California coast) where winters are warmer and summers typically don’t go above 75°F. (Between May and August, it’s best if your fava crop has some morning fog or afternoon shade.)

Close-up of broad bean flowers on a stem

Growing fava beans solely as a cover crop or green manure (with no intentions of harvesting for food) means you can buy cheaper seeds in bulk, rather than culinary varieties that are sold 25 seeds to a packet.

Disclosure: All products on this page are independently selected. If you buy from one of my links, I may earn a commission.

Here are some recommended varieties to try, based on your needs and climate:

  • Small Fava: Forage-quality variety sold by the pound
  • Sweet Lorane (30 to 60 days): Extra early variety bred for cover cropping, cold tolerant down to the low teens (°F)
  • Extra Precoce a Grano Violetto (65 to 70 days): Early variety with purple beans
  • Windsor (75 days): Delicious and popular heirloom bean
  • Aguadulce (75 to 85 days): Very sweet and exceptionally cold hardy

View the Web Story on growing fava beans as a cover crop.

This post updated from an article that originally appeared on October 15, 2013.

About Author

I'm a plant lover, passionate road-tripper, and cookbook author whose expert advice and bestselling books have been featured in TIME, Outside, HGTV, and Food & Wine. The No-Waste Vegetable Cookbook is my latest book. Garden Betty is where I write about modern homesteading, farm-to-table cooking, and outdoor adventuring—all that encompass a life well-lived outdoors. After all, the secret to a good life is... Read more »

45 Comments

  • D
    August 15, 2022 at 7:53 am

    Thank you for the great info!! Will be trying the sweet loraine this winter.

    Reply
  • Reynaldo Rodriguez
    February 5, 2021 at 10:06 pm

    Just purchased some of the sweet lorane. I’m trying to build fertility in a plot of land which is mostly sandy out in Hendry County in South Florida. Not sure this will actually work there but happy to give it a try.

    Reply
    • Linda Ly
      February 11, 2021 at 2:04 pm

      Definitely worth a try! Cover crops like fava beans are great for adding biomass to your soil. Let them build up over time and mulch your beds during the off season (with wood chips, alfalfa, or straw) to improve the soil structure each year.

      Reply
  • Ginger Marie Rivera
    September 21, 2017 at 8:08 pm

    Hi there! A lot of articles say to use a garden soil inoculant containing rhizobium leguminosarum bacteria when sowing fava seeds for cover crops. Have you ever used this and noticed a big difference? Thx!

    Reply
    • Linda from Garden Betty
      November 9, 2017 at 10:31 pm

      If you already have healthy soil full of microbes, the inoculant is unnecessary in my opinion. However if you’re sowing fava beans specifically as green manure and you want to ensure there will be enough nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil (or you’re trying to revive poor soil, or prep a virgin garden bed for planting), then inoculant is recommended.

      Reply
  • Linda Ly of Garden Betty
    December 3, 2016 at 6:12 pm

    Early to mid fall is best, but if the weather has been temperate, you can get away with seeding your fava beans later in the season. I’ve seeded my plants in winter when we’ve had unusually warm weather in SoCal. The only con to that is the lower angle of the sun in our garden, which slows their growth.

    Reply
  • Joan Gray
    October 4, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    Where can I get fava bean seeds? I live in Marin County.

    Reply
    • Linda Ly of Garden Betty
      October 14, 2016 at 5:08 pm

      I get mine from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rareseeds.com). They also have a brick-and-mortar store, the Petaluma Seed Bank in Petaluma. I highly recommend a visit!

      Reply
  • opus11
    November 2, 2014 at 5:44 am

    How about pesticide? I tried to grow fava beans for two years, and each year the plants were covered with aphids. How to deal with it?

    Reply
    • Linda Ly
      November 3, 2014 at 5:44 pm

      I occasionally use neem oil spray to control aphids, but find that aphids only appear at the end of the season when the plants are already stressed and starting to die back. If they’re attacking healthy plants, you might be underwatering or overwatering, or there may be another underlying cause like excessive nitrogen or lack of sun. If you’re using any kind of pesticide, it’s also possible the pesticide may have killed off beneficial insects that typically prey on aphids.

      Reply
  • Olive grower
    October 21, 2014 at 8:34 pm

    Question for Garden Betty or other….. How long between germination until flowering and pod production ? I am thinking of planting as a cover crop but cutting and disking under before pods are produced to gain all the nitrates produced and the organic mater as green fertilizer. thanks

    Reply
    • Linda Ly
      October 21, 2014 at 10:18 pm

      Mature fava beans can be harvested in about 3 months, so I would guess they start flowering about halfway through that cycle. However, if you’re in a very cold climate, the plants continue to leaf out all fall and winter but don’t bloom until spring.

      Reply
  • digitaldebris
    May 19, 2014 at 10:33 am

    Right on — I’ll try this in the winter to fix nitrogen in my “medicinal herb” garden beds. We get fava beans in our CSA and they’re really tasty after all of the labor involved. We saute them in butter and garlic.

    Reply
    • Linda Ly
      May 23, 2014 at 6:38 pm

      You can also eat fava bean pods whole — just throw them on a grill!

      Reply
  • Dovid
    May 4, 2014 at 10:25 am

    The top shoots are edible. I sauté them as I would pea leaves. I also harvest some if I need to thin the beans that I’ve planted.

    Reply
  • denise
    November 15, 2013 at 4:38 pm

    We planted our fava beans too deep this year, 6″!!!!!! Only 4 or 5 have grown a few inches in height out of 30 or 40 seeds. Will the rest grow or not? We live in central California if that helps any. I appreciate your time and help with this.

    Reply
    • Linda Ly
      November 15, 2013 at 5:02 pm

      I’d say that if the majority of your seeds haven’t germinated after 10 days, they probably won’t at all.

      Reply
  • Elu
    October 21, 2013 at 4:39 pm

    Thanks for this — very interesting! Coudl you please tell me how long they will be productive for? I have lots in my southern hemisphere garden and they are giving us great beans, but they have crowded out/shaded everything else and I’m keen to cut them down in the next month.

    Reply
    • Linda Ly
      October 21, 2013 at 6:26 pm

      Mine go all season, so I guess at least 4-5 months or so.

      Reply
  • Miamimyamy
    October 16, 2013 at 1:27 pm

    What a great idea! I am learning so many dimensions to gardening and was just going to toss some mulch on there but now I think i really need to plant fava beans. I love that it would be something potentially useful! Thank you!
    Amy
    rollermillfarms.blogspot.com

    Reply
  • Aparna
    October 15, 2013 at 10:24 am

    You have so much knowledge! Your blog is not only useful but reading
    your posts is a good break from my otherwise crazy work days. Thanks!

    Reply

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