Favorite Cowpea variety

georgiahomegarden 1/29/2012, 4:24 pm

I purchased some seeds yesterday and I was wondering what different kinds of cowpeas people preferred to plant. I personally like white acre peas, but I want to try some different varieties.

http://georgiahomegarden.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-seeds.html

staf74 1/29/2012, 8:29 pm

Hi there,

I've done Lima beans and both regular vining and bush types of both peas and beans before in my SFG. I have not done cowpeas specifically but I was leaning towards them this summer as they are heat loving and will do well in our brutal summers.

Are you going to trellis / support them or going for a bush type?

Not grown any yet but some bush varieties I was thinking of from some searches and browsing my catalogs are....

Black Crowder
Penny Rile
Mississippi Silver Crowder - Really compact bush.
MN 157 - Hybrid purple podded. Early variety.
Whippoorwill - some of these stock can date back 200 years.

All cowpeas really are a good choice for our locale and there are nearly 300 varieties to choose from. What were you thinking of?

I thought this was a neat article.....

http://www.jeffersoninstitute.org/pubs/cowpea.shtml

georgiahomegarden 1/30/2012, 5:54 pm

Well, I am definitely going to plant white acres, zipper cream, and texas cream since I already have the seeds. I have planted pinkeye purple hulls and black eyes in the past. They are OK, but I prefer the creamy taste and texture of white acres.

I prefer bush types because I don't like fooling with trellising. The purple hulls are supposed to be bush type, but last year I had a plant from one bed cross over to my corn bed. It latched on to a corn stalk and grew 7 feet in the air!

There are just so many types, it is hard to choose.

Here are some of my purple hulls from last year.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RWB_8W9C420/TkXfezGpx6I/AAAAAAAAA0E/BdNU0RKZv18/s1600/DSCN5493.JPG

laingram 1/30/2012, 7:24 pm

My absolute favorite would have to be SaDandy cowpeas. I planted those and the Running Conch cowpeas last year. Both did pretty well.

georgiahomegarden 1/30/2012, 8:34 pm

laingram wrote:My absolute favorite would have to be SaDandy cowpeas. I planted those and the Running Conch cowpeas last year. Both did pretty well.

Cool, what do they taste like?

laingram 1/30/2012, 8:58 pm

They are a super tiny green cream pea. They have much sweeter taste than most. I find the purple hull and crowders a tad bitter. The tip my great-grandparents always gave was to cooks them with a little sugar. It draws out the taste a bit more.

miinva 1/31/2012, 9:05 am

I've grown a few kinds and they were all wonderful, but I'm not as picky about flavor (I've never met a cowpea I didn't love!). I've grown calico crowder and holstein because they're beautiful, pretzel for the interesting seed pods, black peking, purple hull, and a couple of others from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I always get a great harvest and as I said, I haven't met a variety I didn't like.

Thank you for the thread, I might try sadandy and running conch just for the novelty of it. I recommended that our CSA grow cowpeas this year because they love this climate so much.

laingram 1/31/2012, 11:10 am

Here is a pic of some of those cowpeas from last year...

Favorite Cowpea variety 421144_229048890515502_100002311791531_498751_154579575_n

georgiahomegarden 2/5/2012, 10:26 pm

miinva wrote:I've grown a few kinds and they were all wonderful, but I'm not as picky about flavor (I've never met a cowpea I didn't love!). I've grown calico crowder and holstein because they're beautiful, pretzel for the interesting seed pods, black peking, purple hull, and a couple of others from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I always get a great harvest and as I said, I haven't met a variety I didn't like.

Thank you for the thread, I might try sadandy and running conch just for the novelty of it. I recommended that our CSA grow cowpeas this year because they love this climate so much.

I like them all too, but I do tend to like the ones that have a creamy texture better. For some reason, black eyes and purple hulls have a sort of gritty taste to them sometimes. Man I can't wait till Spring.

georgiahomegarden 3/4/2012, 10:47 pm

laingram wrote:My absolute favorite would have to be SaDandy cowpeas. I planted those and the Running Conch cowpeas last year. Both did pretty well.

FYI....I found some SaDandy field peas from a local feed store. I picked up half pound worth. Do they put out a lot of pods?

laingram 3/4/2012, 11:05 pm

I would probably plant 1 square per person you want to feed. I wasn't quite sure how well they would do since I planted them late last year (my grandmother kept forgetting to send the seeds). All things considered, the produced pretty well. They pods are fairly long and since the peas are tiny, you will get a fair amount.

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