Non-yardlong Snap Cowpea?

[oxbowfarm]

Can anyone suggest cowpea varieties that are good for snaps besides the yardlong types? I am interested in the yardlongs as well but I was hoping to trial some less unusual pod types as well. I've never grown them but would like to experiment with them next year, as snaps and as dry pea/beans. There are some varieties in Southern Exposure but it is a little hard from the descriptions to tell if any of them can be used as snaps. It seems like a lot of them are used as green shellies?

[blueadzuki]

I manged to get seed off two of my black seeded cowpea plants (planted from a bag of seeds sold for food, orginating in Malaysia). and was also curios about thier potential as a snap. Both plants produced pods of approximately 6 inches in length One plant produced 9 pods (so I probably have enough leftover seed from that one to share a little with one or two persons). Those might be best used as a sheller, as the pods are fairly skinny (about the thickness of a yardlong bean say as wide around as a pencil). They also have a sort of purple cast, though, by the time they showed that, they were really too old to be eaten green (within a week of going purple, a pod would begin the drying down process of being mature). The other one on the other hand might actually make a very good snap bean. I don't have enough of it this year to share, due to getting only one pod off of it (it had two but an animal chewed the other one off before it was mature enough to make viable seed. The plant just set another pod but that one is growing quite slowly, and may abort). unlike it's sibling this ones pods are thick; as thick as any snap bean I've ever seen (and since they are a little constricted they are probably even thicker than they look). This one would also be considered a wax cowpea; the pod is pale yellow (actually, it's almost white by the time they are ready for harvest). Since I am planning to re-plant that one next year, by years end I should hopefully have seed to spare; and will be happy to send you some. I also plant to plant what little seed I have left from the orginal bag, in the hopes of getting some others with interesting mixes (this was the bag where some of the cowpeas were green inside, but both the plants were white interior ones. I still have a few greens though, so I an going to try again). One warning though, as I collected all of the pods for seed this year, I have no idea how these cowpea pods taste. I also have a lot of reddish pink Thai cowpeas if you want them now, though as those are very tiny, I'm dubios as to whether they would make snaps of consequence.

[spacecase0]

I have grown the mississippi silver kind,
and I am not at my garden,
so I tried to convince my mom to try one as a snap pea,
she refused saying that it looks to tough for that...
no idea what it is like because I was not there to try one
they do make a good dry bean though
the pods were 6 to 8 inches long,
they did very well last year and not nearly as well in this years cooler weather

[oxbowfarm]

So...
Obviously the yardlong beans are cooked using the whole pod, and southern peas are generally shelled. Is this a factor of the toughness of the pods or cultural custom? Are southern pea pods too tough to eat? Is it a factor of the age of the pod when picked? Anyone have any input on this question?

[steev]

Last Summer, I tried some early Pinkeye Purplehull pods as green beans and they were decent tasting, but undeniably tough.

[blueadzuki]

I think that it is sort of both together. Partly it probably is cutural; it may be that Southern tradition and African Tradition (cowpeas largely came over from Africa with the slaves, so tradtions of which part you eat probably came over with them) just don't normally eat the pods young, they prefer to let it all mature. And that is the other part you mentioned, how long you let the pods stay on the plant. Snap beans are like peas, or (most) cucumbers, or sweetcorn; if you want to eat them as a fresh vegetable, you have to pick them long before they are mature enough to grow. So if you live somewhere where crops are erratic and famine or shortages always a very real possibility, making such veggies a major part of one's cuisine may seem a little wasteful and inprudent especially with the case of legumes, which have a fairly low seed per fuit ratio (an average cucumber has several hundred seeds, so tecnically, so long as you put 1-2 fruits aside, you've got enough seed to get you through next year assuming you are talking about a smallish subisitence farm, Even one ear of sweetcorn (fully pollinated) will give you 200 or so seeds, more than enough for a home patch. But the average legume pod has only 5-15 seeds in it. Yes under normal conditions, that plant will produce dozens of pods, but if it's a hard year, a plant producing only a few pods would not be an unusual occurence (leaving aside those plant that don't produce anything). If I lived in a place where I knew this could happen, where it would not be an unusual occurence for my beans to have a bad year, I might be reluctant to sacrafice a significant portion of my crop early for consuption as a vegetable. There may be nutrients in the pods, but those beans, fully matured, would have better food value per ounce, better long term storability (mature beans can simply be dried and put in a bag which in a pre-referigeration situation would mean they were a lot easier to keep over the winter) and, come next planting season, any leftovers could simply be put back into the ground. Indeed I tend to think that one of the only reasons the Asians eat the yard long ones fresh is for the lucky associations (in many Asian cultures long food = long life).

[12540dumont]

Tim,
Cortona sent me some Fagiolina del Trasimeno Beans. Although these are also Vigna unguiculata, their origin is also Africa. This is a very old bean historically. It has more protein, more lipids, B3, selenium and zinc than my ordinary beans.

I never thought to even try them green, but I read some where that they were cooked in their shell with garlic and olive oil.

Cortona? Tell us what you know. (I only know that they cook fast and are going to be the star of my soup recipe in the coming season).

vimeo.com/31779462

Regards, Holly

[cortona]

ok fagiolina del trasmeno can and i point just can be used as a snap, but i think here in italy we have at least another variety of vigna that are developped eactly for this purpose, i've find this link,http://www.foursementi.it/scheda.asp?codice=F230017&confezione=19&canale=20&gruppo=02&specie=21 let me know if you are interested(i can buy a pack and share it with you!)

[12540dumont]

Cortona, that catalog always confuses me! That bean sounds great, maybe next year. This year I have to make sure my little Tresimeno's fill the fields!

[cortona]

my dear Holly.if like some seeds of the dolico....let me know, i've the packet on hands now so....

[12540dumont]

Hey I just got an e-mail from Daniel at Seeds of Italy (GrowItalian)
and they have just gotten in Dolico (dall'occho) Vignas. It's their dual purpose black eyed pea/cowpea.

[oxbowfarm]

I just got the catalog and noticed it myself. I'm gonna have to try them.

[cortona]

i've the seeds in hand if you want a smal quantity(alf a pack) to tryal happy to share seeds with you guys!

[oxbowfarm]

Thanks Cortona, but the immediacy of this thread combined with the fact that I'm doing my main seed orders for 2012 anyway caused me to buy a pack from Seeds of Italy for my very own. Can't wait to try it. Save you some postage!


Anyone know a good source for Cowpea innoculant? I noticed that Vigna is not included in the standard Combo innoculant I usually buy.