Vining Cowpeas

[TheSeedObsesser]

This years going to be my first time with cowpeas. I've started out with one bush variety, but just got three more in the mail today (two un-named, probably all vining). My question is do the vining varieties of cowpea need support, or can they just be left to trail across the ground like a cucumber or squash?

 

[baymule]

I think most cowpeas are vining and they just make this big bushy vining mass of greenry. They don't vine like cucumbers, they just pile up in a heap. I have never staked peas. Down south, we just call them peas. What kind did you get? Purple hull are very popular here.

 

[skeeter9]

Are cowpeas the same thing as black-eyed peas?

 

[baymule]

Yes, they are. And crowder peas, pink-eyed purple hulls, lady cream peas, zipper cream peas, calico peas......unto infinity.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Let's see here, the two named varieties...

Torkuviahe Pea - from West Africa, picure:

Copied text from website: "An old variety grown by the Ewe people of West Africa. As far as we know only a few farmers in the Lake Volta region are still growing it. Beautiful small red beans are borne in long straight pale-yellow pods. Traditionally cooked in stews or simply cooked with rice and served with any spicy fish, meat or vegetable sauce on top. Can also be eaten like string beans when young and tender.


Grey Speckled Palapye - crowder type (Baker Creek was having a half-off sale ). Read in the comment section that it is a bush variety and grows more like a soybean. Picture:

Copied text: "Flavorful, gray-speckled peas in large pods; very early and perfect for the North. From a market in Palapye, Botswana. Rare."

The other two are completely unamed varieties that come from a freind in New York. He picked the peas from a bage of mixed beans that he got from Chinatown and grew them out, the bag was originally from Thailand. One is small, white, and wrinkly with a brown eye. The other one is just large and black (about the size of a pinto bean)with the occasional brown spot.

I've read from a few places that southern peas/ cowpeas need support. I was just thinking that it would awfully nice not to worry about staking them, I'm going to need all of my stakes for the tomatoes and pole beans. I don't see the peas growing up poles when I see a picture of a field of them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've only grown the bush type, not the vining. I don't know if the vining grow like pole beans or green peas. Probably depends a lot on the variety. I'd suggest you plant them where they can spread out if they need to, maybe on the outside of your plot so you can maybe train them away from your other stuff. Or if you are growing corn, in among that.

 

[baymule]

Here we grow peas in rows, yes they vine but not like a single climbing vine. They make a squatty bushy plant, then take off in all directions, but still not like a climbing vine. I'd say don't worry about staking them. JMO

 

[hoodat]

Most cowpeas, sometimes called field peas are semi vining. If you give them something to climb on you will lose les peas to ground borne funguses. Whipporwills are full sized climbing peas that need a bigger trellis.
I like the monkeytail peas I got a couple of years back. They don't bear as heavily as some but the taste is delicious and the dry vines are outstanding rabbit fodder. They were gathered in Africa by one of the seed preservation organizations.