Description

Discover the culinary versatility and beauty of 'Windsor' fava beans. These frost-tolerant plants thrive in cool conditions and offer a range of harvest options: enjoy young pods like snap beans, tender greens from pinched foliage tips, or sweet green shelled beans from mature pods. With striking white and black flowers on sturdy, upright plants reaching up to 4 feet tall, 'Windsor' favas are both a gardener’s delight and a tasteful addition to flower beds.

Botanical Name: Vicia faba
Days to Maturity: 75 days
Family: Fabaceae
Native: Unknown
Hardiness: Frost-tolerant annual
Plant Dimensions: Rigid, erect plant up to 4' tall, and 24″ wide
Variety Information: 5″–6″ glossy green pods grow both solitary and in pairs. Each pod contains 3–8 large, oblong-shaped, flat, light green beans.
Type: Snap bean

When to Sow Outside: 6 to 8 weeks before your average last frost date. Cold Climates: Very early spring, when soil temperatures are as low as 35°F. Mild Climates: Sow early to mid-winter for spring harvest.
When to Start Inside: Not recommended; bean seedlings are sensitive to root disturbance.
Days to Emerge: 10–15 days
Seed Depth: 1″–3″
Seed Spacing: 1 seed every 4″–6″
Row Spacing: 18″–36″
Thinning: Not required.

Harvesting: Favas beans are at the peak of freshness just before the saddle-shaped scar at the end of the seed (“hilum”) turns brown. To eat whole like a snap bean, harvest when young and pods are 2″–3″ long; for fresh shelling beans, harvest when the pod shell turns green and the bean is a light green color; and for dry beans to store, harvest when shell turns hard and brown and seeds inside are dry.

This packet sows up to 9 feet.

18 seeds.