Southern Peas Can Take the Heat

When it is hot outside, most garden plants like squash and cucumbers droop in the sun and heat similar to what I do after being outdoors for any length of time.  Southern Peas or Cowpeas, or Field Peas or whatever you may call them seem to love the hot, oppressive dog days of summer.  I like peas and rice with a little sausage or tasso cooked with them for some flavor, so we always plant a row or two of peas.  This year I planted some Blackeyed Peas and Ozark Razorback Peas on the row I had allocated for cowpeas.

The Blackeyed peas were the first to ripen so I went out in the sweltering heat and picked a bowl of peas.  They were of varying stages of ripeness, but they’ll all get cooked in a pot quickly, so it doesn’t really matter.  I like to pick them when I can see the big bulges of plump peas marking the pods, so that means I’ll pick them from the green stage of the hull color all the way to the brown stage.  I find they are easiest to shell when the pods are yellow.  Here you can see the peas ready for picking.

The Pea Patch

This closeup photo shows some blackeyed peas in every stage of development, from bloom (center), to tiny pods just forming (at the 11 o’clock location in the photo), to green (center left), to yellow, to brown.  Although some critter is eating holes in some of the leaves, it really doesn’t bother the pods or production of the peas.  The only thing that you have to be careful for is ants.  The pea pods must be extra sweet, because fire ants like to climb the stalk and bite you when you are picking them.

Peas ready to pick!

As you can see below, the cowpea row has weeds that should be pulled.  However, I’ve shifted my priorities to other areas as weed pressure at this point doesn’t really affect the production.  Besides, it is doggone hot out there! 

A few weeds, but so what?

There are so many peas it doesn’t take long to pick them.  I straddle the row and quickly fill a bucket with blackeyed peas.  Our Ozark Razorback Peas aren’t quite ready yet.  I’ll give them another week or so.  Normally, I plant purple hull peas, but (gasp) I didn’t have any in my seed inventory.  I made a mental note to be sure to get some.  I’m thinking about planting some in another week or so.  Some years I like to plant Holstein peas, too.  They are named as such because of their distinctive black and white markings, similar to the milk cow.

A nice mess of blackeyed peas

I brought the bowl of peas inside and sat it on the counter.  Benjamin and I enjoy shelling peas together, so we tag team them and in no time at all we have a nice bowl of blackeyed peas shelled.

Now they are shelled!

This will make a nice meal served over rice.  It is a healthy dish as it is a good source of protein.  Whatever you may call them, they are delicious and are always grown in our garden.