Gena makes a cold soba noodle salad that's just what you'll want in your lunchbox this spring -- and shares her tips for wrangling spring's most high-maintenance vegetable.

This is the fourteenth in our biweekly series from Amy Pennington – urban farmer, founder of GoGo Green Garden, and author of Urban Pantry and Apartment Gardening – on how to start growing your own food, no matter how tiny your garden-to-be is.

Today: Amy shows us how to harvest plants from root to stem. Don't stop at eating fruits and vegetables -- eat pea vines, squash blossoms, and even tomato leaves!

Fava beans aren't afraid to give you a hard time -- what other vegetable needs to be shelled twice? But they're worth it. Their intensely green pods are used in spring dishes all over the Mediterranean world, from Italy (in the spring stew la vignarola) to Iran (blanched and tossed with angelica). FOOD52er innoabrd's Besara -- think of it as Egyptian hummus -- is another classic preparation.

As you blanch and peel your fava beans to tender perfection, here's more about them, both inside and out.

Fava beans lose their prissy reputation.