A few years ago, a friend laughed when I told her I was growing cowpeas to shade the baked southern wall of my raised bed. “Cowpeas? You are kidding! That’s not food! We only grow those for the quail!” Well, they are super tiny… not much food for the plant space, but tasty- and hopefully everyone from or visiting the south has had the black-eyed version, especially on New Year’s Day. Here’s a great article on why some cowpeas have black eyes.  Come on, they are AH-MAZING!

And they do love the Alabama heat (and did a great job shading that raised bed edge all summer long). I love them but I have a terrible confession: I’ve yet to eat any that I’ve grown. But they DO deserve a spot in the garden. I chose them early on in my planning this year (fantasy football for gardeners). And at the end of the season, I hope to have a mixed bag of pretty, tiny, fast-cooking cowpeas for us to eat AND to give away for Christmas. (Yay!) We have so many varieties gathered up from last year’s plants: Mitchell family, Clay, Holstein, Old Timer’s,  Red, and even a Black Crowder cowpea… But we’ll see what makes it through summer and into the mix.

This year, we are even toying with the idea of using them as a living mulch between the corn rows. Jury is still out on that, because the corn is only a foot or so high. Apparently this has been tried with some success, though. Check out this article. I’m just looking forward to a late summer/fall harvest of far too many tiny pods to sit and pick through (people who have compulsive habits like me, do love shelling tiny peas). Ooo! A regular Pea Pickin’ Party… maybe I can invite some of M and m’s friends over to help. Kids have nimble fingers, right? Child labor laws be damned. And we may make a Pea Pick’n cake. YUM.

But all fantasies aside, we put in about a 5 foot wide patch of cowpeas and the little brutes popped up from the ground in only a few days.

See? Already fun. They are so worth it. But the cowpeas are the least exciting thing on the farm, I swear. Can’t wait to show you more…