Harvesting Cowpeas

We're growing several different types of cowpeas and I'll soon replant with additional seeds in the rows that our garlic and beets used to occupy.  The cowpeas that we grow are:

1. The purple hull pea that is named for its purple hull that is easy to spot:

Easy to figure out how it got its name!

2. The Ozark Razorback Pea:  I find this pea easy to pick since they seem to stand up tall and say, "Pick Me!"

Ozark Razorback Pea

We also grow Black-eyed peas and a cowpea that I got from a friend.  He calls them Crack Peas.

Crack Peas

We quickly pick a bucket of cowpeas.  We just mix them all together, because we eat them all the same way - either over rice or as a side dish.

A 'mess' of peas

Now some folks who plant a lot have a mechanical pea sheller.  We do it small-scale so we do it the old-fashioned way, we sit around the island and shell them by hand. When we all work together, it goes quickly. On this particular night, Russ helped me.

Shelling peas

It is an easy process.  All I do is hold the pea in my hand and snap open the hull at the seam.  Then I use my thumb to run along the inside of the hull pushing the peas into the bowl.

Thumbs up (and ready to push the peas out of the pod

We always throw the empty hulls in our compost pile as we re-incorporate them back into the garden to be used to add organic matter back into the soil.

For the compost pile

Most of today's harvest was Ozark Razorback Peas.  A neighbor asked me to save our Purple Hull pea hulls as she make jelly with them.  Interesting.  Purple Hull Pea Jelly. I had never heard of that!  When the purple hulls start coming in I'll bring her the purple hulls well.