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Matki Indian Moth Bean Vigna Aconitifolia Seeds
Packet of 30+ freshly harvested home grown seeds!
This is a very handy little nitrogen fixing legume that you don’t see grown in Australia very often.
It’s native to India and Pakistan it is super drought tolerant.
Over there they grown heaps both as a food crop and as a fodder and I can’t see why we can’t do the same here.
The plant is normally grown for the delicious beans it produces, and they are a major staple in many areas.
You can pick the pods and cook them up like any other bean but they are much smaller.
Luckily they produce heaps of them and because they are in bunches you can pick them a handful at a time.
If you want to harvest just the fully ripe seeds there is a bit of an art to it.
Most mechanical harvesters are not capable of doing it as the crop is very low, the pods are delicate and the seeds themselves are small and kinda square.
That need for manual harvest is one of the main reasons it isn’t a staple crop over here.
For the relatively small crops like we grow, and backyard gardeners like you guys it isn’t an issue at all as hand harvesting is super easy!
Just wait till the plants have brown pods and the first couple begin to fall.
All you do is grab a handful of stems, cut it off at a slight angle with a scythe, sickle, or just use a harvest knife like I do, chuck it in bucket or on a wheelbarrow.
Repeat, just walk along the row cutting and collecting the crop, and when finished empty it all on a tarp and leave in the sun.
Stir them up and turn it a couple times every day for 2weeks or until crispy bone dry.
If you don’t turn it, you get mouldy green manure.
Same deal if you try to store it on a moist day.
On a nice hot sunny day, tie or bundle the corners of the tarp to make a big pillow, then just walk on it or thump it with a stick to pop open all the pods and dislodge the seeds.
When thoughtfully threshed, just trow away the stems and give it a winnow, by pouring it from one bucket to another in a windy place or in front of a fan.
That’s it, the small heavy seeds remain, everything else gets blown away and you can cook it up and eat it, or wack it in jars and store it.
Anything you might put beans, lentils, rice or meat in, this makes a tasty alternative.
Awesome in slow cooker soups, stews and curry!
High in protein with about ~25%, and lots of trace elements and minerals too.
Most importantly they taste bloody good.
You can cook the tender shoots and leaves like a vegetable and the beans can be ground into flour too.
The seeds can be sprouted and fried with hot chillies and tomato for a very tasty snack.
Bit of yogurt on the side, some nann or even just a few bits of toast, bloody awesome!
Commonlly called mat bean, moth, bhringga, dew bean, makushtha, mat, matki, moth, moth bean, and botanically they are sometimes known as Dolichos dissectus, Phaseolus aconitifolius, Phaseolus palmatus, and Vigna aconitifolius.
It’s a great little bean that produces a great crop right through the hottest driest Summers.
It likes temps of 20c+, and even up to 45c it doesn’t slow down at all, pumping out a crop in just a few months.
Grown by me and the Mrs, no chems, no nasties, no dramas!!!
