Week 17 Discussion

Fava Beans

This week's painting subject, fava beans, is a vegetable. More specifically, it is one of the legumes, a family of plants that produce seeds inside pods; i.e., peas and beans. The Latin name for fava beans is Vicia faba. Other common names for it are broad bean and faba bean

Though fava beans are grown primarily for human consumption, varieties with smaller, harder beans called field bean, tic bean, or tick bean are fed to livestock. The appearance of those plants is virtually identical to fava beans. The photo below shows what the leaves look like.

As shown, fava bean plants begin to grow erect on their own until they reach 3 to 4 feet in height when they need to be staked or supported in some other way to prevent them from flopping over, especially when loaded with maturing beans. Most garden varieties don't grow much taller, but can get up to 7 feet tall.

The photo above shows flowers in bloom. Here is a close-up view of them.

Clusters of 1 to 6 blossoms grow from leaf nodes, the places where leaves attach to the main stem.

 typical mature fava bean plant will produce from 30 to 80 blossoms. Some varieties can produce over 100. How many beans are produced depends on how many of the fragrant blossoms are pollinated. 

Fava bean blossoms have 5 petals. The large upright petal a the top is the banner petal. There are 2 wing petals, the narrow ones flaring out toward the sides. The 2 keel petals are fused together at the bottom. They serve to protect the reproductive organs.

Each blossom has both male and female organs, so they can self-fertilize. Cross pollination with the aid of insects drawn to the blossom's sweet fragrance produces higher bean yields.

Fava beans are annuals. In mild climates, they are typically planted in the fall or winter for harvesting in the spring. In colder climates, they are planted in the spring for a summer harvest. It takes 6 to 8 weeks after planting for blossoms to appear. After blossoming and pollination, it takes 3 to 4 weeks for bean pods to start to develop.

Fava beans are good to eat, pod and all, only when they are still very young; no more than about 2 inches long. As they age, the pods become tough, waxy, and fibrous. The one below looks about ready to be harvested. Note that the main stem has sides. It has a square cross-section.

These beans look nearly ready to be harvested, too.

Fava bean pods contain 3 to 5 beans  on average, though the number can be up to 10 to 12 beans in some varieties. 

This is a closer look at what the interior of a pod looks like with the beans still attached.

The actual edible beans must be extracted from inside a casing. Boil the beans for 1 to 2 minutes and then put them immediately in ice water. This loosens the casing just enough to be able to easily extract the beans. Like the pods, the inner casings are edible when very young, but they soon become bitter and unpalatable. 

This double shelling seems like a lot of work, but the result is delicious and highly nutritious.

Besides the beans and young bean pods, fava bean blossoms are edible. They make attractive garnishes or can be added to salads. The top 4 to 5 inches of fava bean plants are often called fava greens. They can be eaten raw or cooked like spinach. One recommendation is to sauté them with garlic and olive oil. Certain varieties of fava beans are fed to livestock. The entire plant is used. Fava beans are one of the oldest domesticated crops, with cultivation going back around 10,000 years in the Middle East.

Self-Fertilization

Plants in general need lots of nitrogen. It is a primary driver for photosynthesis, plants' energy producing process and the reason for the green color. Nitrogen supports several other vital functions, too. Since 78% of Earth's atmosphere is comprised of nitrogen, one would think that nitrogen availability for plant growth is not a problem, however that is not true. Atmospheric nitrogen is N2 which is two nitrogen atoms tightly bound together. Plants can't use nitrogen bound that way. What they need is nitrogen that is chemically bound in nitrates and ammonium. Some kinds of bacteria in the soil makes those substances from decaying organic matter. 

Concentrated growth of certain kinds of plants, as was often done in traditional agriculture and is still done in some places today, can exhaust soil nutrients and lay waste to whole regions unless fertilizer is added to the soil. That increases the cost of farming that poor farmers often can't afford. Instead, such farmers move to new areas where the process repeats and wastelands increase, a process called desertification. Estimates are that about 40% of the Earth's land surface has been degraded that way. The U.S. is not immune to such problems. The corn belt in particular has suffered considerable topsoil loss, though a lot of that is from severe tillage-induced erosion.

The good news is that some types of bacteria have the ability to directly convert atmospheric nitrogen into the kinds of compounds that plants can use. Some plants, legumes like fava beans for example, are able to host colonies of that kind of bacteria in nodules in their root systems. They are the white balls in the fava bean roots shown below.

Artwork

Imao Keinen (1845 – 1924)

Keinen was part of the early 20th century shin-hanga (new prints) movement. He is primarily remembered today as the author of Keinen Kachō Gafu, a book he published in 1892 of kachō-ga prints. This one is Fava Beans and Lark. There are a couple of other types of plant in there, too. The fava bean plant is in bloom, but there are no beans yet.

Ohara Koson (1877 – 1945)

Koson was one of the most prominent members of the early 20th century shin-hanga movement to restore traditional subjects, values, and techniques to Japanese print art. This one, printed in 1912, is titled Hummingbird and Green Beans. The problem with the title is that there are no hummingbirds anywhere outside the Americas. Besides, this bird doesn't look like one. Also, green beans are different than fava beans. It is okay to enjoy the picture anyway.

Unknown

Absolutely nothing is known about this print other than that it is a still life with smelts and fava beans.