Cowpea
Vigna unguiculata
also called black-eyed pea, southern pea, field pea, crowder pea, purple hull pea
The South's field pea in all its family lines: black-eyed, purple hull, crowder and cream, a heat-proof, drought-proof legume that feeds the soil, the table and the New Year's luck pot.
- Type
- Vegetable · Grown as an annual
- Botanical family
- Legume (pea & bean family)
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Purple and violet
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Low; it makes a crop on heat and neglect that would kill a snap bean
- Soil
- Any warm, drained soil; thrives where richer crops sulk
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- Frost tolerant
- No
- Sow direct
- 14 days after the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 65 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- at the first fall frost
- Plant spacing
- 3.9 in
- In-row spacing
- 3.1 in
- Between rows
- 2 ft 6 in
- Square-foot density
- 9 per square
- Sow depth
- 1.2 in
- Root system
- A taproot carrying nitrogen nodules
- Working depth
- 18 in–3 ft
- Can reach
- 5 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 24 in–3 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
The pink beads on the roots are rhizobia, fixing nitrogen out of the air in exchange for sugars. Cut the plant off at soil level when it is finished rather than pulling it up, and that nitrogen stays in the bed for whatever follows.
The habit is Cowpea’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- Three harvests from one row: snaps at 50 days, green shellies at 65–75, dry peas at 90 or when the pods rattle.
- What to look for
- Snaps: pods slim and crisp. Shellies: pods swollen, waxy, changing color (purple hulls announce themselves), seeds plump but still soft. Dry: pods papery brown.
- How to harvest
- Pick snaps and shellies by hand every couple of days; shell the shellies on the porch, which is the traditional half of the harvest. For dry peas, pull whole plants and finish them upside down somewhere airy.
- How often
- Every two or three days at the shelly stage; picking drives more pods.
- Storing the crop
- Shellies keep days in the fridge and freeze beautifully blanched. Dry peas keep years in jars, and a scoop with rice, a hog jowl and a new year is the whole point of the crop.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Garden birds Passeriformes
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & Trichogramma
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Praying mantis Mantidae
A sit-and-wait ambusher that snatches caterpillars, beetles, and anything else that wanders close — friend and foe alike, so count it a mixed blessing. Tall, structured plantings give it perches and egg-case anchors.
- Aphid midge Aphidoletes aphidimyzaHunts Aphids
A tiny midge whose orange maggots paralyze aphids and drink them dry, twenty or more each. Sold as a greenhouse biological control and resident outdoors wherever there are small nectar flowers and an unsprayed aphid colony to find.
- Assassin bug ReduviidaeHunts Aphids
A patient ambusher with a curved beak it drives into whatever it catches — caterpillars, beetles, bugs, and the occasional bee, so count it a generalist rather than a specialist. It will jab a careless finger too, so admire it and leave it be.
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Aphids
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Damsel bug NabidaeHunts Aphids
A slender, mantis-armed bug that grabs aphids, small caterpillars, and thrips in low crops and meadowy edges. Leave a strip of unmown grasses and flowers for it to overwinter in.
- Dragonflies & damselflies OdonataHunts Aphids
Aerial hunters that take mosquitoes, midges and small flies on the wing all day, and whose larvae spend a year or more clearing the same insects from the water. A pond with planted margins and no fish is the way to have them.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carneaHunts Aphids
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Aphids
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Aphids
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.Hunts Aphids
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Soldier beetle CantharidaeHunts Aphids
Soft-winged beetles seen mating on flower heads in high summer; adults and larvae both take aphids and soft grubs. Open composite flowers are their landing pads and hunting grounds.
- Spiders AraneaeHunts Aphids
Webs, ambushes, and night patrols make spiders the garden’s steadiest generalist predators, taking whatever flies or crawls past. Mulch, ground cover, and undisturbed corners keep the population dense.
- Tachinid fly TachinidaeHunts Stink bugs
Bristly, house-fly-lookalike parasitoids that lay eggs on caterpillars, beetle grubs, and earwigs — the maggot consumes the host from within. Adults sip nectar from shallow umbels and daisies.
Eat them at every stage: young pods like green beans, plump green 'shellies' (the prize), or dry peas for winter. Hoppin' John on New Year's Day, black-eyed peas and rice for luck, is why half the South grows a row.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com