Last year Ishared Deborah ’s winner story with produce pigeon peas in North Floridaand also wrote about my want of achiever .
Pigeon peas are an excellent multi - purpose works if you’re able to uprise them ; however , they are a truly tropical species and do not like the frigidity at all .
When I was living on Grenada I had great success grow them and used them as a ground covering / nitrogen mender on fresh crystalise ground , interplanted with grain corn .
Yesterday I got another comment on my mail about pigeon pea plant in North Florida , this time from Mwho drop a line :
“ Well I ’ve been maturate pigeon peas for several years north of Gainesville , small town off I-10 . I have n’t had much of a problem growing them without much additional attention . They did block pretty heavily here late — but two of the plants are 3 year old , and have do thru previous winters fine . I have some additional flora in another location(that are 4 or 5 years old ) under a mellow canopy that were unfazed by the freeze that has defoliate my other plants(more exposed location ) . These plants we received from a friend , they are several years sometime and have have no extra attention over many years . I used to go harvest her plants for years before I planted mine . I am eager to research cultivar but the letter - act gens do n’t have verbal description . ”
Frost protection of some form seems to be key , as is the selection of variety .
As I wrote back :
“ Good job . The age I grow them we had some nasty Robert Lee Frost . One dark was 12 degree . That was back in the early 2010 ’s somewhere , which made me give up on them . You’re right that the dissimilar cultivars are a pain in the neck to visualize out . They need courteous name , like “ Early Gold , ” or “ Fat Sally ’s 5 - In - A - Pod ” or something like that , where you know what they are . ”
Whatever kind I was growing back in the other days of my North Florida Food Forest would not go into bloom until November or so , plant cod lento due to the cold , then those pods would freeze off in January or so before ripening . An early variety would be a giving assistant .
These pigeon peas I snap in Bay Minette , Alabama were bloom in August :
That is good ! I ’ll calculate they made some adequate pods before our first rime at the ending of November .
The variety that I was uprise before come from an Amerind foodstuff so it was probably a type from the inscrutable tropics with a longer season . I should require the folk that own the peas above if I can have a few seeds .
Though even if you do n’t get to harvest peas , pigeon pea could be a peachy quick - time of year addition to a fresh food forest project thanks to their abundant growing and the atomic number 7 they fix . Shorter season variety would just be a incentive .
