Chickpea

DESCRIPTION

A nutritious legume from the Mediterranean and Middle East, chickpeas can be tricky to grow to maturity with Armidale's short growing season. I have managed it before though, and it was a fun experiment! Our mild summer with cool nights is ideal for the development of the crop. If you're successful, you can use those chickpeas to make your own hummus! Legal note: please don't eat the seeds provided.

SOWING

Chickpeas need warm temperatures to germinate, and too much water during germination can cause the seeds to rot. You'll also need to get them in the ground by the end of December, so I recommend choosing a week when there isn't a lot of rain forecast, and then pressing the seeds into the soil in the middle of any open spaces at the back or side of your garden bed, at least 25mm deep and about 15cm apart from each other. With nitrogen fixing nodules on their roots, they can be very helpful supporters for some plants, like cucurbits and corn, and are especially useful for restoring parts of the garden that have borne heavy feeders like tomatoes, potatoes, and large leafy greens in the past. Water the seeds in well and then take it easy for the rest of the week until you see the seedlings start to emerge. There is a caterpillar in Armidale which affects the chickpea, and that's why I recommend spreading it around the garden instead of planting it in a clump - doing this confuses the pest and reduces the number of eggs laid in your patch. It's not a good idea to start chickpeas in seedling pots, because the success rate after transplanting them is very low - instead I encourage a casual approach to sowing in the garden. Will grow in larger pots if you're very careful not to overwater them.

WATERING

Chickpeas are light water consumers, a little sensitive to rotting - don't water them for as long as other plants in your garden (early morning and/or late afternoon is best in summer). You'll be able to tell when the plants are thirstier than normal, because they'll be flourishing and green - if they aren't, try letting them dry out a little more each day.

SUN EXPOSURE

Chickpeas need as much light as possible to flourish, but do well growing next to other things or in clumps. They'll need to be staked eventually to make sure the sun can still get through. They're best planted at the back or side of your patch since you won't be harvesting until Easter time - but the leaves are so beautiful that you might want one or two close to the front too! As long as they get more than a half day of sun, they should thrive.

COMPANION PLANTING

Chickpea plants get about 20cm wide and 1m tall at most. They can be used to shade other vegetables in the garden that need some shelter from the sun, and will grow well as close as 20cm away from most things. Two plant families that can be planted close to chickpeas are maize and cucurbits, an ancient combination invented by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and referred to as the 'Three Sisters'. In this tradition, squash (and other cucurbits like cucumber) shade the soil underneath corn, while beans (and other legumes like chickpeas) climb the cornstalks. The three support each other to produce more food than each could on its own, and chickpeas can be part of this relationship - sunflowers can also be added in place of some of the corn stalks. Chickpeas also play well when planted among asters, apiums, and brassicas. Avoid planting this lovely plant too close to alliums because they can affect the flavour of the peas. Beetroot also causes issues underground when it comes to competing for space, and solanums block out the sun and compete too strongly for nutrients. Chickpeas pollinate themselves, but you can still increase the biodiversity of your seeds by encouraging pollinators with any flowers, but especially small white and purple flowers that are attractive to native bees - plant your borage in the general area too for best results.

HARVESTING AND EATING

Chickpeas are a very versatile food - like most legumes, you can pick the tender green pods and enjoy them raw, sautéed, stir fried, or added to soups. As the pods mature, they'll become tough, and you'll want to leave the plants alone at this point to go through their life cycles and start to die back, around the time that the frosts return. Then you should uproot the plants and bring them inside, laying them out on a flat surface to dry, such as the floor of a clean shed, on an old sheet on the floor of the house, or on an unused table. You'll know they're dry enough because the pods will crack open - at this point you may want to sit down with a friend or the kids and go through the pile, carefully removing each chickpea. They say that the best hummus is made from dried chickpeas, and now you can find out using your homegrown batch! You can also try grinding them if you have the equipment, as an ingredient in falafel. These beans can also be soaked and added whole to savoury dishes like salads, soups, curries and stews, fried up for a healthy snack, or used in more imaginative ways to make things like tofu. It's recommended to freeze chickpeas that are intended to be stored for cooking for at least 48 hours to kill any bugs that could be inside - but make sure you save some in an airtight jar for growing more chickpeas next year. If you want to make sprouted chickpeas from your new batch, you also shouldn't freeze them - they're great when added to salads, and even more nutritious than the un-sprouted bean.

SEED SAVING

Make sure that any chickpeas you store long term are completely dry and in an airtight container - they'll be good for at least 3 years, Don't sow these seeds again until next year when the risk of frost has almost passed - time your sowing carefully, as they need to be planted between Melbourne Cup Day and New Years Day in order to get a harvest.