Harvesting
Pigeon Peas
Crunchy, slightly sweet, with a burst of flavor, these peas are an easy addition to your garden. Growing from trees, they require little attention and yields an amazing crop.
Pigeon Peas were one of my favorite things to grow in the garden. They are a wonderful tree to add to your home, not taking up too much space but yet can give you pounds and pound of peas per season.
When in flowering, you will have a beautiful orange glow in your yard from this amazing tree. The flowers are beautiful providing great attraction to butterflies, hummingbirds, and even bees.
Literally, one day I purchased some dried pigeon peas from Amazon. I planted several of them and because I had an abundance growing them and not even space to plant multiple trees, I just ended up planting a few. I just took my little seeding, placed it into the ground a few inches deep and bam! All it needed was watering every so often and that was all the maintenance it needed. You can prune back the tree since it can grow tall and difficult to reach, but ultimately it needs no maintenance just some watering.
Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (Sound of Music). In a little package from Amazon came a pack of Goya dried pigeon peas. Opening up the package trying not to spill it, because I'm not sure if you've ever tried to open those bean packages, but those beans try to escape on you!
Taking a wet paper towel or napkin, I placed several of the dried peas in the middle of the paper towel and covered the peas up with the rest of the wet paper towel.
Using several peas at one time helps determine that you will have at least one germinate, however you may have many start sprouting, so if you have space for several trees that's a plus.
Taking that wet towel, I place it into a storage bag (like a Ziploc) to keep a humid environment and with the bag opened I place under the kitchen sink or a nice dark place.
After our seed has started sprouting, there are a couple options. You can place into a small planting container with proper drainage and good quality garden soil and wait till the seedling starts to grow then you can replant. However, if you have a space prepared you can place your pea directly into the soil.
Now it's time to just wait. Water your plant every other day as needed depending on your weather and wait until it booms and starts producing pods.
Once your tree starts to bloom with the beautiful flowers, those flowers eventually turn into little, tiny pea pods which will grow into larger pods holding your amazing little peas.
It only takes about a year for these to start producing pods which is amazing because it's such a quick crop to have.
Once these pods have started growing you do want to wait until you can feel each pod for a nice full pea. Some may be small with space within the pod, that means it's not ready to harvest quite yet. Some may need harvesting while some may need more time.
You can also leave the peas on the tree to completely dry out for your own dried peas for storage.
