I just spent 2 1/2 Hours in Saturday morning picking tops in low garden. Ony got 3/4 dehydrator full first time and ran them til partially dry....emptied them into brandy. Then, put in the ones I finished picking for 3 hrs Saturday evening...which was a full dehydrator...(which I have let run all nite on lowest setting.) Won't pick again now for a wee or so...then there will be more stems with tops...some at ground level...they seem to form the top really quick.
Forgot to remind you that you need to take the tops of each stem of the fava plant...the little unopened flower top ball protected by leaves is what will draw ants and aphids/ earwigs also and leaf hoppers. This makes the plant send out stems from the bottom ..which gives you more tops (the part I dry for tincture...which seems to be the strongest l-dopa on the plant) Remove the leaves surrounding the top ball & eat..or can eat the whole thing if you don't want to tincture, but it needs to come off even if past the ball stage and has tiny leaves on the top...plant will be healthier if pinched back
Was blessed yesterday with a Bee Hive. We have had only one or two honey bees here on the farm ...even our sunflowers did not have polinators last year.Wasps have been the biggest source of polination. A neighbor found a hive in a building nearby last year and destroyed them...have hardly seen any bees since.......perhaps we will have better crop polination this year. God is good to provide our needs. Have a blessed day (Aunt Bean)

When you see ants...they are usually farming aphids...got to keep the
tops picked out (I have found that if you harvest all the tops at
once, whether they are developed or not...it discourages aphids and
ants. The aphids don't like parsley tea either...Take fresh or dried
and pour boiling water over it:2 heaping Tbs dried or good handful of fresh to 2 Cups boiling water/cover and let steep for 1/2 hour til cold/ strain and put in a spray bottle and hit the tops...possibly you can pick aphid free the next
day / and parsley tea wont hurt you or bees....(if you have a big patch..make a larger batch of tea. )
God Bless-

Beans are forming outside on the field fava plants now and I picked the first tiny ones for my friend's birthday yesterday . She benefits so much from the young pods which do not have any bean in them as yet...hope she gets as much boost from them as she did 5 years ago with our first planting of favas. At that point, she went from riding in a wheel chair around the grocery store to walking around pushing a grocery cart and really enjoying the outing on her birthday. God gave us such a wonderful gift for PD. Blessings!

Hii there AB

My fava plants are about a foot high now and showing blossoms z--and most have 3 stems per plant. Is it too late to top them now? Also I was under the impression that its the white velvety lining on the inside of the pod where the LD is concentrated so perhaps size of bean is less important as I have seen large but immature beans with a nice amount of velvet? I'm wondering if when I juice these pods I lose large amounnts of valuable constituents including LD to the froth.... Thanks! md

It is never too late to top the plants and help them bush out growing new stems...if I miss the tops when tight , the leaves will open and become spindly on the top of the stem...I still pinch off the first 3 inches to generate bottom growth in the plant....thus more stems / more tops/ more beans.

HI! so I just cropped a few tops ( I didn't take them all because our growing season for favas may be short...it gets pretty hot and dry here soon....) . Am wondering if I should take apart all the tops so they dehydrate evenly with the stems and leaves??? sorry to [plague you with these questions you've probably already answered many many times before - how much brandy to how many tops approx??? thx AB!

Ask what you need to....happy someone is interested enough to grow favas and make tincture. I break them up..removing all but the tiniest leaves and removing the stem...using only the unopenned flower head that is still tightly formed and draws aphiods and ants, etc (must be pretty sweet stuff in comparison to the rest of the plant) I dehydrate the top for several hours/ then put them in a jar. Add just enought brandy to cover close tightly and shake well. Check in a few hours to see if you need to add more brandy..Sometimes the plant material absorbs alot. Each stem makes it's own TOP, some at only a couple of inches tall...I usually pick once a week after the first ones are harvested and new stems begin to grow. Shake this mixture daily (or up to 3 times a day) for at least 2 weeks

ROGER that!! I'm so glad I only harvested a few the first time as the stems and large leaves were included the last tincture batch. do you just spray the aphids off?? Do you ever use the opened flowers?? hope my plants continue to produce in the heat. How tiny is "the tiniest of leaves" as the "balls" on my plants include some leaves 1 and 1/2 inches...??
thanks so much for your counsel - sharilyn

I only include leaves under1/2 inch in length. I have made tincture with just openned and unopened flowers...they seem of much different content...some people use them for anxiety ( haven't found a chemist to test yet...so do not know l-dopa content of the tincture yet, but it is nice. If you hae aphids...make parsley tea....you can buy dried parley in large containers pretty cheap if you don't have any fresh growing. Put a handful in a non-plastic container and pour 2 Cups boiling water over it and cover for 20 minutes. Uncover/ strain and add cold water...about 3 more cups and spray on the tops of plants where the aphids congregate. My description of "balls of unformed leaves and flowers" could be replaced by BUDS (like a rose bud before it opens, they will be found during a short time at the top section of each stem...then they bud out and the stop becomes more spindly looking. A blessed event: Bean Acres has new additions today...got to watch baby chicks hatching out after we got home from church....so cool God is good....His creatures are amazing

Hi everyone and especially Aunt Bean,

Thanks for posting all of this wonderful information on Fava Beans. My father has had PD for a while, and I'm now started to look into Fava and Mucuna. Still trying to find an online store that sells different varieties of seeds, though. I'd like to get the best varieties for our garden.

My dad takes Carb/Leva 25mg/100mg four times a day, and we would like to start replacing some of that with mucuna seed powder capsules or fava beans. I just bought some 650mg Organic mucuna seed powder capsules, and through some research I've found that about 4% of the seed is L-dopa, which would make each capsule contain about 25mg of l-dopa, give or take. Do any of you have recommendations or ideas on how much Sinemet we could or should initially attempt to replace? I was thinking he could cut his pills in half, and take one capsule and one half four times a day instead of four Sinemet. Let me know what you all think!

Thank you Aunt Bean, and thanks again everyone for all of your posts throughout the years.