Krishikari

We started our Black Peanuts and Speckled Bambaras today! We soaked and inoculated them - see last couple photos for the transformation. Holding/loving/planting the seeds: Amirah, a Truelove Seeds apprentice focused on crops of the African diaspora. Peanuts are from Paraguay/Brazil and bambaras are from West Africa. While they are both legumes, they are not closely related. Bambaras are close cousins to the black eyed pea, though like peanuts, their fertilized yellow flowers send “pegs” directly down into the soil and form “nuts” in pods/shells. When peanuts arrived in Africa, presumably via the Spanish, they were a familiar new plant. The peanut in Africa usurped the bambara’s names: groundnut, pindar, goober. Peanuts and bambaras kept these various names in North America as well. It is debated whether enslaved Africans or Europeans first introduced the peanut to the American South in the early 1700s, but it was certainly the Africans in America that most used this groundnut in their cooking. Later George Washington Carver, whose campaigns to help the poor Southern farmers out from under King Cotton, widely popularized it (and MANY other crops and ecological techniques) even further. Bambara is very nutritious, very drought-tolerant, does fine in poor soils, AND gives back via nitrogen fixation. You can boil or roast the fresh seeds, or dry them to make a flour for dumplings, cakes, or porridge. #bambaragroundnut #vignasubterranea #blackpeanut #arachishypogaea #seedkeeping #goobers #pindar #mpinda #groundnut #bambaragroundnut #legumes #innoculation

Malabar Spinach flower buds. This climbing plant is cooked as a leafy green like spinach, sautéed with rice, and used to thicken stews (it is mucilaginous). Originating in India, Southeast Asia, and New Guinea, it is used widely throughout tropical Asia and Africa, and has also naturalized in parts of South America, the Caribbean, and Polynesia. Though my partner has been growing this vine for years at his farm, I’m fairly new to it. Any tips/recipes/further info welcome! Last time I posted about this, @tamara_stanger said to pick the bright purple buds and purée with prickly pear or other fruit! #malabarspinach #basellaalba #climbingspinach #creepingspinach #buffalospinach #basella #seedkeeping #seedsaving