Rainbow Pigeon Pea Mix

We believe that through history, food plants have been appreciated for reasons beyond their most basic practical uses. Colors, scents and other less tangible things imbue meaning to food and help us appreciate the diversity contained within the natural world.

In 2023 we collected around 10 strains of pigeon pea and planted them all out to evaluate. The diversity expressed in these plants was so interesting, and the colorful peas so beautiful, that we decided to offer seed packs that contain all the varieties. This wide mix allows gardeners to get a variety trial in one seed pack. If any particular variety performs better than others, these seeds can be saved for future plantings. A person may also choose to maintain a mix of varieties in the garden and enjoy the beautiful colors over future years.

Pigeon peas are used for fresh peas, dry peas, soil remediation, animal forage and more. Getting this wide variety mix gives you the opportunity to find a variety that you like best for whatever particular traits you are after.

Some of the strains planted were not stable and gave peas different colors than the original seeds. Some types presented plants with visibly different attributes within the same population. One striking example was that planting purple pigeon peas yielded some plants with purple seeds and green pods, and others with green seeds and purple pods! Some flower earlier during longer days and some are more day sensitive. Since all of the plants were grown in the same field there has surely been some crossing. Plenty of the seeds may represent hybrids with new trait expressions. We hope you will kindly mail us back seed of any crazy new pea colors! Bear in mind that some peas in this seed pack that are a similar color and shape may actually be different varieties.

As of now, this batch of seed does not contain “Sweet Red” which we isolated into separate packs to maximize the limited seed of that variety for people who want a surefire sweet vegetable variety.

We are offering these in two options
$5 – 40 seeds
$10 – 100 seeds

Some varieties contributed a lot more seed than others due to there being more plants of certain varieties. With one population (painted purple) every plant produced different colored peas with the “painted” look. Each individual color expression is pretty rare in our big seed stash which we mix up and bag using measuring spoons. This is all to say that 40 seeds may not contain every expression plant we saw in the field so we are offering the 100 pack to increase chances each customer gets a wider gene pool.

We will continually be collecting new pigeon peas to grow so the rainbow will get more colorful in future years.