Grow Logs 2019 - Pigeon Peas

I like pigeon peas (Scientific name: Cajanus Cajan. Even when I was still young back in the Philippines, I like eating them together with rice and tuyo (dried fish). We just boil them in water with pressed garlic and salt to taste, until they soften. I know it in the Tagalog language as kadyos though in Batangas, it is called kagyos (Notice the difference - g instead of d?).

Source

It is only when I moved to New Zealand that I learned that they are called pigeon peas. It took a few years before I was able to get some seeds for germination. I actually started planting them last year's season. However, I planted them a little bit late, and while I read in most articles that there are stories of them surviving the cold winter season in the United States, my plants have died last winter, even though we only have light frosts in the winter peak.

I was a bit hesitant to plant because I am still unsure whether the last day of frost had passed. True enough, there were frosts this morning. I do not have a greenhouse that's why most of the time I just germinate the seeds outside, which is not a good idea when the weather is still cold. It is already the second month of spring and I think (though it frosted this morning) it is already a good time to get my plants going.

As part of my contents here in Steem, I will post grow logs, or some may call gardening journals, of the plants that I grow. For this post, as the title suggests, I will present a grow log of my pigeon peas. In my succeeding updates, I might repeat a process I presented previously, where I started planting another batch of seeds to grow.

Growing pigeon peas is easy. To have a good start for germinating the seeds, I soak them first in water. So you need obviously your seeds. I start with about 20 seeds first, I can just add more in the coming weeks as the weather becomes warmer and warmer.

Then I use a small bowl. Just pour a small amount of water enough for the seeds to be submerged.

Then store it in a dry, dark place. I place them in one of the closed shelves in the kitchen pantry. And that's it, we started our first step in germinating pigeon peas. The process we did is to actually hydrate the seed and wait for them to become a bit lumpy. I will check every day for developments then I will create another post when we have made good progress.