It's like that experiment in high school where the teacher whispers a few lines to the first student, and each kid whispers to the next what was said and so forth down the line. When you get to the 35th kid....
This year a friend asked me to help grow out some of a dearly departed friend's heirloom fava seed, as they were having difficulty producing seed and were concerned about losing it completely. The seed was originally from the south of Italy. I had never grown fava before, so I did what I saw suggested online and planted half of the seeds in October. It turned out that this was not a good idea in our climate; all but one plant died (thank goodness I had only planted half of the seeds). The remaining 15 seeds hit the dirt in very early spring and thrived, producing a bumper crop of fava beans. What I found interesting when I went to harvest them was the extreme variation in the pods. Some plants had produced thin pods, others thick, and each had its own individual colour palette. I decided to separate the pods, and then the seeds from each plant--and it was a real eye opener to note the variations. Perhaps this is typical of fava? (I am even wondering if this might be considered a 'land race' fava, in that they are the same, yet so different). And just think-- if 15 people had each been given just one of these fava bean seeds to plant and they each got different results it could have been very perplexing.
