I’m always delighted at the people who say they’ve read my story on my website and how they learned that my great-grandfather got me into horticulture. His name was Eron Edward “Crip” Conley. Crip was a heartless nickname that came early in life when someone accidentally chopped off two of his toes with an axe. But, I knew him as Granddad because that’s what mom called him, and even though he was my great-grandfather, the name stuck for me.
He was the man that taught me to garden. We used to work his plot together, he pushing his Troy Bilt and I following behind raking our footsteps left in the tiller’s wake. We buried tomato stems to help them form new roots. We used string to mark straight rows.
Once he realized my interest, he started a small plot for me to grow some of my favorite vegetables like corn, beans, and tomatoes a few feet away from his garden. Any question I had he could answer. I loved every minute of gardening with him.
He passed away when I was 12 going on 13. The year after he died, my Granny, his daughter that lived with him in his house, allowed me to take over his garden since we didn’t have a good spot at our house due to the shade. And, his absence and the desire to learn more about growing would take me on a path that would eventually lead to a Ph.D. in plants.
But, that’s a different story. Today’s tale goes back to that first year I inherited his garden spot. It was a piece of land about 30 feet wide and 50 feet long. That year I grew what I normally would grow—tomatoes, corn, and beans. But, off to the side of the garden I noticed what looked like a bean plant but wasn’t. Once it got some heft to it, I realized it was a cowpea, and it was a seedling from Grandad’s crops the past year. Though he had left me, one single seedling from his plants from last year had germinated. I was delighted and ecstatic. I let it grow in the less than optimal spot, and at the end of the growing season, it produced a single pod with nine seed in it. I planted those seed the next year and the next and the next until I had saved up a nice bag of seed. They were much more vigorous growing in better soil. I’ll be honest. I really didn’t like to eat them back then, but I did like to use them as a cover crop, their nodules fixing nitrogen in my garden’s soil.
2007 was the last year I had a garden up at Granddad’s house because I moved away to graduate school in 2008. The peas went into the fridge in my parent’s basement and were forgotten.
I was home this past March, and I saw the bag in the fridge. It hadn’t been touched in 16 years. And, now that I was a connoisseur of cowpeas, I was curious if they would still grow. I had yet to find a good variety that I liked to cultivate here in Texas. I had thought at times of Granddad’s peas, but I was worried they might fail here like many of my other plants I used to grow in Tennessee. I did a test sowing of the seed to make sure they were still viable after sitting in a fridge for 16 years, and sure enough a few days after putting them in a bagged moist paper towel, out they popped.
After prepping the beds, I sowed them using the trick of holding a waist-high piece of PVC pipe to plop the seed in the tube to limit bending over as I walked down the row. A few days later up they came. I cared for those plants like it was the first plant I ever grew so many years ago. I fertilized them, I thinned them, and I even used our mini-Dyson to vacuum leaffooted bugs off them (don’t tell Karen!).
The lovely purple flowers of ‘Conley’ cowpea
They grew and flourished, the first purple flowers appeared, and then came the blushed pods and green peas. I ate the first couple of handfuls of seed in the garden raw. It’s an acquired taste I suppose you could say—earthy and fresh, but sans bacon grease that we normally use to flavor them. And, with the first mess, that’s exactly what we did.
But, what were they? Sure, they were my Granddad’s peas and a family heirloom, but I loathe not having a cultivar name. Greg Grant and I bounced possible cultivars of black-eyeds, Crowders, and purple hulls off each other but none stuck based on flower color, seed pod, and seed color. The closest we got was ‘Whippoorwill.’ So, for now I will call them ‘Conley’.
What amazed me as much as 16-year-old seed germinating and successfully growing was the number of insects the plants attracted. From cultivating them years ago in Tennessee, I don’t recall the plethora that I now see flitting and stirring in front of me as I make my way down the row. Gulf Fritillaries, Gray Hairstreaks, American Bumble Bees, Winged Red Velvet Wasps, Eastern Tawny-horned Spider Wasps, Swarthy Skippers, Northern Cloudywings, and Clouded Skippers were a few of those I could identify. Even in the leaf litter below I found assassin bugs waiting for prey. They were coming because cowpeas have extrafloral nectaries on the leaves and the inflorescences. Most species that have these nectaries outside of the flowers attract beneficial insects that then reduce pests on the plant. And, in such a rough summer where much of the garden was a desert, I was happy these insects found sweet nectar in my the oasis of my pea patch.
Gulf Fritillary
Northern Cloudywing
Clouded Skipper
Common Thread-waisted Wasp feeding from extrafloral nectaries
Gold-marked Thread-waisted Wasp
But, the plants are now tired, and the pea harvest is coming to an end. I have enough dried seed for next year and perhaps a batch or two for New Year’s. I’ve started clearing the vines to make way for collards and other greens that will no doubt accompany the first meal of 2024 with them. As I was clearing the vines dotted with pods I overlooked picking, I noticed a single cowpea had broken ground and germinated from the recent rains we’ve had. And, I thought back to many years ago when I found that first pea seedling that gave rise to the 60 foot of row I’ve enjoyed this summer.
I doubt anyone has ever rejoiced over cowpeas this much, and I doubt Granddad thought anything special of them. They were probably just what the farm store had in stock that day.
But, to me, these seeds are priceless. That’s the power of saving seed. The act transcends generations. Saving seed reminds us of who we are, who we were, and who we are going to be. One day when Magnolia is old enough to help me sow seeds, I’ll share this story with her. And, I hope that after I’m gone, she’ll keep growing these cowpeas, too.