Fava beans and succession planting

[eqfe]

For years I've been planting fava beans in the spring in whatever area of the garden I plan to grow tomatoes. I've been told that digging them into the soil kills off the organism that causes tomatoe wilt viruses. Does any one else do this?

Less specifically are their any specific succession planting schemes that you follow?

Comments

[ayse]

I hadn't heard favas kill any of the wilts. That seems unlikely to me. They do fix nitrogren and add a lot of good organic material to the soil, though, so they are very useful. I like to till under most of the plants and harvest from two or three: enough seeds for the next year and some to eat (I love fava bean soup).

I do this rotation:
summer: tomatoes
fall/winter: favas
spring: legumes (usually beans and peas)
summer: squashes
fall: root vegetables except potatoes
winter: leafy greens
summer: fallow
fall/winter: favas
summer: tomatoes

I let my beds go fallow during the summer sometimes because of the climate I garden in; summer plantings require a lot of water. A single fallow summer can save me a lot of water, and I usually have plenty of food coming out of beds I don't plant tomatoes into (which don't require as much attention to rotation).

[acy]

I don't know about tomato viruses, but many of the bacteria which colonize legume roots and fix nitrogen will also colonize the roots of other plants. This can keep many fungal diseases from taking hold like blight or powdery mildew.

In any case, seeding your soil or inoculating seedlings with beneficial microbes is always a good idea. I've been using MycoGrow products for a while now and they seem to help with the powdery mildew problems I've had with tomatoes. (I just picked February tomato #2 yesterday!)

[eqfe]

February tomato, what a wonderful concept.

[acy]

I think it's the whole La Niña thing. I've seen flowering trees in bloom, and azaleas, and a few evening primroses here and there. It's like spring has started already. So much for that groundhog thing.

[ladyapple27]

I plant beans with strips of buckwheat between the rows. The buckwheat keeps the weeds down and builds the soil. If the buckwheat gets too high, I mow it with a push mower with a collection bag. After the first crop of beans, I till under both the beans and buckwheat. Then I plant buckwheat where the beans were and beans where there was buckwheat. It's very productive and builds the soil for the next year's corn crop.