A Look Inside The Iron Curtain 2024

[woodeye]

I had a very late start this year, the garden was not tilled until May 18. Lots of rain a few weeks ago, but not a drop has fallen since. I'm in the process of mulching everything with native grass I cut, raked, and hauled from the pasture.

Double row of purple hulls planted in middle section on May 25. Double row of Crowder cowpeas on right planted on June 1. 
 

Edited to add this picture taken on June 3, to show you all how things looked 19 days ago.


Several varieties of okra planted on May 28.
  

Sweet potatoes on right planted on May 26, most are Orange Ginseng. 

[macmex]

Beautiful!

[FrostyTurnip]

It’s wonderful.  The photos do not serve justice with that fence.  It is formidable! 

[woodeye]

Oh that's right, FrostyTurnip , you've been inside the Iron Curtain, but you actually found the exit pretty fast and got away...🪤🤗

[FrostyTurnip]

 You can’t catch me!! 

[jang]

As someone who grows with a very different climate (in England), I had to look up what Purple Hull are but I’m still unsure. Are they actually grown and eaten like a bean? Do you pod them and eat them fresh, or dry them?
I assume they need hotter weather than we have?

It would be great to have some insider information.

[macmex]

Jang, I suspect you could grow a more cool adapted variety of cowpea but not the majority of them. As I recall, Carol Deppe, a gardening author who lived in the Pacific Northwest (which has a cooler, wetter climate than most of the US) found one which would grow for her. "Cowpeas" are from a very different species than the other "beans" we know. It's a more tropical legume and renowned for withstanding heat. If you do a search here for the following, you can find descriptions and photos: Red Ripper, Pole Cat, Calico Crowder, Mississippi Purple Hull Crowder Peas, MN150 Cowpea, Pigott Family Heirloom, Ozark Razorback Cowpea, Penny Rile, and Las Tablas Long Bean. 

Here's a photo of one. This is Penny Rile, which I sometimes grow.


During the American Civil War, in many instances, the South depended on cowpeas for survival. This was because they could be sown "guerrilla style" and make a crop out in the brush. This combined with the fact that most Northerners didn't recognize them, meant that they often escaped destruction when Northern troops passed through. To this day many Southerners start the New Year with a dish of blackeyed peas. I believe they do this to remember to be thankful that they have more than that, to eat, now, and also to celebrate the resourcefulness of their forefathers during difficult times. 

Blackeyed peas are a subset of cowpea. They have a black spot at the hilum of each seed, hence they're "blackeyed."

Only a very few real Southerners refer to these legumes as "cowpeas." Most just call them "peas" or "field peas," which tends to confuse their Northern comrades, as for the Northerners, "pea" means an "English pea," like what you would grow in England.  In seed saving circles I believe everyone has pretty much agreed to refer to them as "cowpeas," which is the term that Northerners understand.  

Some have edible pods when small. Most of the time folk eat them as shell beans, shelling them out and cooking them when they are still pretty tender. They do make a good dry bean.

I grew up in a region where no one was familiar with this kind of legume. I started growing and eating them as a young adult and still don't really fit the Southern profile of a gardener who really knows "peas."

[woodeye]

jang , I don't have much to add to the answers to your questions, macmex took care of them very well. I grew up calling them "peas". To differentiate them from the round green garden peas we called those "English peas". That's as technical as we got about it, I don't remember ever hearing them called cowpeas when I was growing up.

I've dried them to save for cooking but I definitely prefer green shelled cowpeas. The pods are turning colors and the cowpeas have some "give" to them when feeling the pod to see if it is just the right ripeness. It's not rocket science or anything, a lot of it is just personal preference. 

I'm growing different varieties this year to see if I can find varieties that the grasshoppers don't like as well. MS Pinkeye 2 Purplehull, Coronet Pinkeye Purple hull, Knuckle Purplehull, & Mississippi Silver. The grasshoppers here do chew holes in the leaves, but the plant does not seem to suffer extensively because of that really. The damage is after the pods are set and growing. I never met a cowpea I didn't like, but unfortunately the grasshoppers say the same thing. I grew blackeyed peas a few years ago and the grasshoppers annihilated those much worse than purple hulls. This year I also have some crowder cowpeas growing with the hope that the hulls are tougher for the grasshoppers to destroy. We'll see. 

Anyway, these pictures from last year show a few of the steps I take to put cowpeas in the freezer. Hopefully I'll have a new set of pictures for 2024 in a few weeks.

"Top Pick" purple hull cowpeas.

Ready to blanch.

Blanched and vacuum sealed, ready for the freezer

[jang]

Thanks to both of you for such full descriptions. The green shelled cowpeas sound really good and I'm regretting that they're not a viable crop here. 

I'm not aware of any adapted varieties of cowpea grown here, and I've not known anyone grow them. I must look up which variety Carol Deppe has grown though. Cowpeas are known because they're available as a dried legume, mainly as black-eyed beans. There are one or two other legumes which we're borderline for. More people in England have recently started growing chickpeas (but I find the yield is very low and it's difficult to pick them before mice get them). Certain varieties of soya beans are viable now, mainly to pick green and eat as edamame. Some other legumes don't really work well. I've tried, for example, a specific variety of lima beans in a polytunnel and got a small return. Yardlong/asparagus bean seeds - another Vigna -  are sometimes sold, but again I think they don't really prosper. 

The English standby of runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) are good to grow here and perhaps give some idea of the comparative coolness and wetness. 

I was very interested in the varied names for different species in different parts of the States, and the different growing preferences. It sounds as though there's a generational variation as well, as there is here.. My parents called runner beans kidney beans, which is a term I haven't heard used since my childhood. 

It's also interesting to me that grasshoppers are such a pest. We do have grasshoppers but not in quantity and never as far as I know as a garden problem. Perhaps they too prefer warmer temperatures. But sympathies. It's especially frustrating when a a predator takes a crop when they're almost ready for eating. It's as though they almost take them right out pf your mouth! 

[FrostyTurnip]

The Purple Hull variety is popular here.  There is a long tradition of preparing and canning grape jelly from the purple hulls.   My grandmother prepared and stored these and when I visited, she would open a can of home made grape jelly to use on my breakfast toast.  I did not know the source until I started gardening for myself.  

[woodeye]

I learned something here today, FrostyTurnip, I was not aware that jelly made from cowpea hulls was possible. 😲

[heavyhitterokra]

Wow Frosty!

That was worth coming here for, just to read your post about making jelly from purple hull pea shells. I've never heard of that before either. When I looked it up online I found recipes and references to the flavor being similar to that of plum, grape, or pear jelly. That is all good information.

As I've never heard of purple hull pea jelly, I've certainly never tried the following recipe, but it's a start.

www.cooks.com/recipe/ok0er4x0/purple-hull-pea-jelly.html

[woodeye]

I probably should begin everything I write with, "I finally got the __________", and then just fill in the blank with whatever I finally got done. In this case I finally got the 3 rows mulched with native grass that I cut, raked, and hauled to the Iron Curtain. 

Yay!


Tension mounts as the wait for the first okra flower in my garden this year continues.

[woodeye]

Slowly but semi-surely, I'm finally seeing a bit of production out at the Iron Curtain. Picking a few cowpeas now and the okra is coming on a bit.

macmex, this is where I would have complained about pests in the garden if not for the picture that you posted the other day of the blister bugs covering a power pole. So with that in mind, I'm complaint-free this morning...

[macmex]

Nice! Looking very good!
What okra is that, Woodeye?