Growing Your Own: When Memories Collide

When I was at a gardening event in late spring, I was given a packet of Mississippi Silver Cowpeas by one of the exhibitors. I already grow two varieties of cowpeas, so I passed this packet along to another gardener. I spoke last week with the gardener, and it was easy to see that, for him, the peas brought up both good and bad memories.

He told about looking out over his father's field when he was a boy, seeing the stems of the cowpeas standing straight up with the pods sticking out at right angles, and knowing that he would soon be out in the field, under the hot summer sun, picking those pods. It was backbreaking work. Then he would spend HOURS shelling out the peas. Watching those Mississippi Silver peas grow and mature in the garden this year reminded him of that set of chores that he had dreaded as a boy.

However, after he'd shelled out the mature peas, he knew that they would have the flavor that was missing from the black-eye peas available in stores. The Mississippi Silvers were the "real thing." He had missed that flavor, and it turns out that a good way to get it is to grow your own.

I didn't have that particular childhood experience, but the first time I grew and prepared Pigott Family cowpeas, I knew that I wouldn't be going back to the bagged black-eye peas from the grocery store anytime soon. Luckily, even though I can grow only a couple of quarts of (dried) peas in my little garden, the farm where Joe and I volunteer on Saturdays grows plenty (this year it was Colossus, but that variety is still pretty good).

For a lot of people, beginning to grow some of their own food is a response to economic difficulties (either present or anticipated) or to concern over environmental problems related to large-scale agriculture, but there are some good, positive reasons for growing your own, too. One of those is the reward of exceptional flavor. Another, for some, is a childhood memory brought to life.

Veggies, Continued

The harvests aren't spectacular, but they have been steady. Today, we are scheduled for rain, which will help keep the veggies coming for a while longer. We don't get eggplant every day, so the picture includes a little more variety than usual for September in my yard.

The okra will probably get fried for supper either tonight or tomorrow; the tomatoes go into salads and sandwiches quickly enough that I will go hunting in the yard for more either tomorrow or Monday; some of the peppers we'll use in supper tonight, but the rest are headed for the freezer; and the white eggplant will be eaten in the next day or two.

The cowpeas have been both late and slow, which I am sure is my own fault. I have about a cup and a half of dried cowpeas so far. The peas in the picture will be added to the jar after they are shelled out and truly dry. I am hoping that the first freeze holds off long enough for the plants to produce a full quart, but that seems pretty unlikely.

I planted the cowpeas in the popcorn-patch in early July, after the corn was already very far along. Between the shade and the competition for water, the poor cowpeas had quite a struggle to get going. Last year, I had planted the cowpeas where and when the summer squash came out. That worked better. Live and learn.