Last year I pruned my pigeon pea back about half on the sides so it would not catch the person mowing the lawn. It recovered, but it did delay the peas from the side shoots by about 2 months.

This site has pics of what I would like mine to look like. It's about a year old now; planted last March and kept into a pot until I got here in July. It's done pretty well considering, but I don't want to wait another 2 months for peas. I just planted more seeds in two other places along that wall, but they are going to be mostly for nitrogen fixing and chop-and-drop as well. I think one nice sized plant will be enough for my needs, especially if it fills out over the summer and puts out lots of pods.

Pigeon Pea Trees

Since they don't tolerate freeze how do you plan to protect it? It looks like a very interesting plant. I'm thinking I would like to try and grow one but it would need to be in a container around here so it can go in the greenhouse during the cold months. Anyone know if they do well in containers?

D, there are different cultivars, one is a dwarf. I planted a few years back and I only had 3, they were so productive that I could not eat them all, and my family wasn't signing for them either. The flowers are pretty and they reseed, I still have some coming up. If you want peas this season, you should wait to cut them.

Bea, pigeon peas grow best in any soil, mine was not amended, if you grow them in a container and transplant them in the spring you should get a crop and maybe treat it like an annual, I heard some people grow them in the northern states. They are the easiest thing to grow, I planted like 8 seeds straight in the garden and they all came up, I only left 3 to grow along the fence, as a side note I had visiting squirrels for them.:)

Silvia

I had never heard of pigeon peas. Wow I wonder if I could grow this in a pot and shove it in the greenhouse in the winter..I could give the chickens the extra peas if my family wont eat them lol.

bea, you see that wall behind it? That's the wall I've been talking about in my other posts that is south-facing and holds heat. Everything in that bed was hit by cold, only none of them died. The ones that are right up against the wall had no damage at all. Not the canna, or the pigeon pea, or the lantana, or the baby red tropical sage seedlings -- nothing. They all not only lived but thrived through the coldest nights we had -- once it went down to 28 or below for 7 hours. Things further out had frost damage, but not one thing died.

We've talked in here about the fruit walls in europe. Well, that is my fruit wall. The heat it gathers during the day seems to created a microclimate at night that protects everything up against it, which is why I planted the papaya against it today.

Not to say that nothing will ever die there, and if it gets really cold, I'll cut them all back and build something around them to protect them, but somehow, I think it would have to get down to the low 20s for several hours for that to happen. That wall is amazing!

sultry_jasmine_nights - From everything I've read, they don't do well in containers, and they grow faster if you plant them directly into the ground. My two were in pots for a few months before I moved, but I planted them out as soon as possible after I got here. The other one is inside the wall and much smaller.

Silvia - I'm not going to cut it back. It's too beautiful right now and I want peas! I love them green. I just read that you can even eat them raw when green, although I probably wouldn't. I like toasting the green ones like they do soybeans. They're tasty to eat that way as snacks.

I didn't see any mention of pruning the plant in the link - are you sure it's necessary? If you prune off the flowers, won't that affect the harvest?

carolb, yes, it will, which is why I'm not going to prune it. Maybe I'll prune it this winter or something, but not now.

D, that sounds like a yummy way to eat pigeon peas and they are good for you. Have you grown chickpeas? I like them the best when green, they grow at the same time like peas, like cooler weather, are easy to grow, don't need trellis and they are short. But my favorite are fava beans., great soil fixer, I saw them planted in Italy in the vineyards.

Sultry, you will benefit with the very productive pigeon peas, they are easy care and your chickens can eat the extras. A popular way to eat them is with rice, many dishes in Caribbean cooking.

I think is also ornamental and you can plant underneath, mine were also by the fence and took the winters.

Silvia

Has anyone noticed if hummingbirds or butterflies visit the flowers often? They kinda look like something they might like. I am trying hard this year to get more plants for butterflies and hummingbirds into my garden. I had an explosion of butterflies here last year. Several different kinds everywhere on the back of our property lol. I want to give them more stuff to nectar on.

Silvia, thanks for the tip on the Carribean dishes with pigeon peas. I will definitely look up some recipes for that. I also love cooking and trying new dishes. We eat a lot of Asian food here. I also like making artisan breads and baking in general.

Dirty, if and when you do prune it, just cut back to laterals, leaving no stubs. Shape as you go, always cutting back to a lateral branch/branchlet. And when you do do this, some flowers will be sacrificed but that is a very temporary issue. Regrowth will soon have many new buds formed.

Sultry, yes, butterflies, bees and hummers all love pigeon peas.

Sultry, I really like Asian food! Over the weekend after the Leu Gardens we went to the Vietnamese restaurant and I had a big plate of different herbs, known and unknown to me to go with my dish.

D, that restaurant had papayas instead of ornamentals in all the front yard and they use it for papaya salads and the bubble drinks and it is right in the middle of the city.:)

Silvia

Silvia, I LOVE green papaya salad! I want to try to make kimchee with some green papaya too. But then, I'm weird. My favorite part of broccoli is the stems, because I make slaw out of them. I can't wait to have my own fresh, organic pigeon peas. Buying them in cans or dried is just not satisfying.

I had the pigeon pea plant in a pot at the edge of my garden. It did not get quite as large as the one in the tree photo, but I also had to trim back about half of the plant and then sweet potatoes invaded the pot. It has beautiful flowers that the bees loved and occasionally I would see a butterfly.

How do sweet potatoes invade a pot? Do you mean air potatoes?

My neighbor grows these. I know she cuts the trees back because they are along side her driveway and get in the way of the cars. She doesn't do much with them but gets so many pea pods. She is Puerto Rican and makes the peas with rice which I love. She keeps trying to get me to grow them which I will this year. They are delicious and her trees (which look more like large shrubs) are always full of butterflies and bees.

This past year, the squirrels did a job on the peas and took most. They wait until the pods are dry and ready to cook. She went away for a week and came home to empty trees.

Jane

Oh no! I hope my squirrels don't go crazy on mine! I have one squirrels who has only one eye. He seems to be the only one that hangs out around my apartment. He feasts on the huge Chiquapin oak acorns in the fall, so I hope he doesn't start eyeing my peas. He hasn't bothered anything in the garden yet, not even the Everglades tomatoes. I should think about putting food out for him so he doesn't get into my stuff. The previous owner used to feed him inside the courtyard, and when I first moved in, he would come in all the time looking for food, but I try not to feed the wildlife. He has plenty of buried acorns around to munch on right now. I see him digging them up. I don't want the Muscovy ducks around, though. There is a section right next to my apartment that evidently has a lot of grubs and bugs, because the ducks hang out there a lot pecking the ground. If I put a feeder out, they will be there to pick up what gets dropped, and I don't want them pooping all over my yard. I'll see what happens. Maybe I can plant him his own little pigeon pea bush over by his tree.

The squirrels can be a little heavy for some of the branches. They did not bother my plant. The sweet potato bed was not far from the pigeon pea and an adventurous vine wandered over and set down roots one weekend I was out of town. It produced two pounds of sweet potatoes in the pigeon pea pot.