🫘 Broad Windsor Fava Bean

What it looks like

Why this variety

Broad Windsor is the fava bean most gardeners mean when they say fava bean: a classic English heirloom, recorded back to at least 1863, producing very large beans — as large as a quarter, seed houses say — in broad, light green pods, on upright plants about two feet tall. It is one of the most widely grown fava varieties in the world for a simple reason: the beans are big, meaty, and creamy, the plants are productive, and the flavor is the robust, nutty fava taste that stands up to hearty cooking. If you have eaten fava beans in a restaurant and wondered why yours never taste like that, Broad Windsor is often the answer.

The kitchen case is about texture: large fava beans, peeled of their tough outer skins after blanching, are creamy in a way small beans never quite achieve, and they shine in purees, stews, and salads where the bean itself is the point. Broad Windsor is also an excellent freezing variety, which means a spring harvest can feed you in winter, and its large seeds are easy to shell — a genuine virtue when shelling is the chore standing between you and dinner. Grow it for the classic fava experience, done properly, in a cool season.

If you are new to choosing between cultivars, the Varieties Matter guide explains why the name after the plant matters as much as the plant itself. And if you want the whole clan at a glance, the broader Fava Bean guide covers fava beans generally.

How to grow

Fava beans in Florida are a winter crop, full stop, and that is actually good news: they are one of the few vegetables that genuinely enjoy the months when everything else is sulking. Sow in fall, once the worst heat has passed, and let plants grow slowly through winter, staking them if a windy spell threatens — favas are tall, upright plants, two to four feet, and a top-heavy plant in a winter storm is a fallen plant. They laugh at frost that would kill a tomato, they fix nitrogen all winter, and they flower early, feeding the first bees of spring. The catch is heat: if your favas are still standing when real summer arrives, they will stop setting pods and start complaining, so plan the harvest for late winter and spring, and treat any June pods as a bonus.

Sow in fall in a mild climate, or very early spring in a cold one, planting seeds 1 to 2 inches deep and 6 to 8 inches apart in rows 24 inches apart, in full sun and fertile, well-drained soil. Favas want cool weather, not heat, so in Florida, fall sowing is the rule and the harvest is a winter-to-spring affair. Stake plants if wind threatens, because tall, pod-laden favas topple in storms, and pinch out the growing tips once pods set low on the plant — this both encourages pod fill and removes the tender tips aphids love most. Water steadily and mulch to keep roots cool.

Water & feeding

Favas want steady, even moisture — about an inch a week — and they show drought stress fast, dropping flowers and making tough, small beans. Work worm castings into the bed at sowing, water at soil level, and mulch to keep roots cool and moist through winter dry spells. Skip nitrogen fertilizer, because favas fix their own, and extra nitrogen makes rank, floppy growth that falls over. Once pods start to fill, keep water steady rather than feast-and-famine, because uneven watering is how you get beans of wildly different sizes in the same pod.

Common problems

Black bean aphids are the signature pest, clustering on growing tips and young pods; pinching tips, washing aphids off, and encouraging ladybugs handle most outbreaks. Chocolate spot and rust appear in wet, crowded weather, so space plants for air and water at soil level. Heat is the real enemy: favas stop setting pods in hot weather, so a late sowing that runs into summer is a lost cause, not a challenge. And a note for cooks: a small number of people have favism, a genetic condition that makes fava beans unsafe — a rare but real reason to know your eaters, not a reason most gardeners need to avoid the crop.

Harvest

Harvest when pods are plump and well filled, but still green and tender, about 75 to 80 days after sowing, shelling beans fresh for cooking — or leave pods to dry on the plant for dry favas, which store for a year or more. Fresh beans are best blanched briefly and slipped from their skins for the creamiest texture, though young, small beans can be eaten skin and all. Freeze blanched, peeled beans in bags for winter, and save seed from healthy plants; Broad Windsor is open-pollinated and comes true, though favas cross readily, so isolate if purity matters.

Saving seeds

Broad Windsor is a classic English heirloom, so it comes true from seed — save seed from your best pods and let them dry fully before storing. The full method is in the Saving seeds section of the Fava Bean guide.