Whippoorwill Cowpea

Cowpea with a green bean pod on huge 5 foot sprawling vines. The coverage is good since it protects a large area of soil from weeds and erosion over the summer. Very drought tolerant so a good candidate for an untended garden over summer. They produce small brown beans with dark brown speckles on them, very pretty. Very reliable and great yields. Cowpeas are an easy to grow summer cover crop and need no attention outside of harvesting the dry beans over summer once established. I have found that they will inevitably end up carpeted in aphids but the plant does NOT need your help. They will not succumb to them and it just serves to attract beneficial insects to your garden so they already call it home by the time you plant your fall garden. They are nitrogen fixers as well but once you start harvesting beans that's where all the nitrogen goes so if that is your goal it is best to plant Iron Clay Cowpea which has delayed fruit set and is used in my summer cover crop blend for that reason.

Packet: ~60 seeds

Good to start from seed in these months:

North Florida: June-July

Central Florida: March-August

South Florida: April-August