Chickpea Update

Chickpeas, garbanzo beans, yummy beans for hummus – whatever you like to call them – I have harvested them. I don’t know if they are ready. In fact I don’t know anything about them except that I planted them as a cover crop and now they have hanging pods. I’m guessing the peas are inside.


To be honest this post was written a while ago so it would be fair to tell you that these pictures and harvesting were from April.

I planted the beans back in November and inoculated them with the appropriate bacteria and they’ve been plugging away, fixing nitrogen in the soil and apparently making new beans.

When I buy the beans at the store they are usually hard as a rock and need to be soaked or sadly canned.

I read in my Farmers’ Market newsletter:

“Have you ever eaten a fresh green garbanzo bean? They can soon be found at our markets in their fuzzy pillowlike pods, and some farmers pull the entire bushy plant from the roots. This means fresh garbanzos are here for a limited time. Not only are they rich in minerals and folate, but just one ounce provides 5 grams of both protein and fiber.”

I had some at home! I yanked them out of the ground and placed them in a paper bag.

After plucking away at them and finding that the pods are very similar to bubble wrap - snap, snap, pop - I found a delicious bean inside. I ate them raw but I'm all you'd need to do is dry them to preserve them for future use.


This is what these gems look like:

Freshly husked chickpeas.

I recommend you try these out next year!

Daphne