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Zombie Pea Vigna Vexillata Wild Cowpea Seeds
Packet of 20+ home grown organic seeds!
This local native fella is awesome and I am growing heaps of it!
So many good points that I don’t even know where to start?
It has a really high protein tuberous tap root that is edible raw, and even better it peels really easily once boiled.
Just give it a rub and the skin falls off in one piece.
It has small edible beans that you can can fry or boil and eat just like any other beans.
Taste is the same, it’s just much smaller than the domesticated relatives you see in supermarkets.
The seeds are used as a grain or pulse in India and throughout the Himalayas, though I imagine its hard to harvest in bulk as the pods split and shoot the seeds in all directions when dry.(must be a trick to it I haven’t worked out yet?)
Even the leaves flowers and shoots are edible and they taste surprisingly good just chucked into a stirfry or spicy Asian style soup.
It makes a great green manure and cover crop, and the fine narrow leaves blend into the surrounds making the beautiful blue and purple flower really stand out.
They start off sky blue with a hint of yellow, and as they develop they darken up around the edges and get a shiny white around the centre and look quite curly and snail like.
They are a common wild harvested food crop all through the tropics, especially in Asia, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Venezuela, and they are also deliberately planted on poor depleted soils to increase fertility as well as being grown in rotation with other crops.
As there is a massive distribution and variability within this species over the years they have been known as Dolichos angustifolius, Dolichos cylindricus, Dolichos vexillatus, Phaseolus capensis sensu, Phaseolus glycinaeformus, Phaseolus humifusus, Phaseolus pulniensis, Phaseolus quadriflorus, Phaseolus sepiarius, Phaseolus vexillatus, Plectrotropis angustifolia, Plectrotropis hirsuta, Strophostyles capensis, Vigna angustifolia, Vigna capensis, Vigna carinalis, Vigna crinita, Vigna davyi, Vigna dinteri, Vigna dolichonema, Vigna dolichoneura, Vigna golungensis, Vigna hirta, Vigna lobatifolia, Vigna phaseoloides, Vigna scabra, Vigna senegalensis, Vigna thonningii, Vigna tuberosa, and here in Australia they are considered Vigna vexillata.
I personally like Zombie pea but before you ask I have no idea why it has that common name.
My best guess is that is come back from the tuberous roots after heavy grazing?
They are found from NSW right up the coast of QLD, through WA and the NT and they grow really easily. All they need is a moist well draining soil and away they go in a couple weeks.
Even just as an ornamental alone it’s a great species to have.
The flowers look really interesting and they smell great, but add to that the edible root, edible beans, leaves, flowers and shoots, the nitrogen fixing nature of the plant, and it being a native!
I really can’t see how anyone wouldn’t want this fella?
Seriously, it’s bloody awesome!
Grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
