Bambara Groundnuts are grown by hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers in semi-arid Africa (where they were first domesticated) as well as in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia. They are the third most important legume on the continent, after their cousin the cowpea (black eyed pea) and the peanut, with whom their history is entwined. Peanuts, originally from Paraguay and Brazil, traveled to Africa via Spain during the transatlantic slave trade, and were readily adopted because they grow and are prepared in the same way. Both peanuts and bambaras grow their edible seeds underground from pegs that dig down from fertilized yellow flowers. You can boil or roast the fresh bambara seeds (like peanuts) or dry them to make four, dumplings, cakes, or porridge. According to the BamNetwork (where much of this info came from), many people prefer Bambara milk to soy or cowpea. Bambara is very nutritious, very drought tolerant, and it gives back by fixing atmospheric nitrogen in the soil. This is a mix we created last year from 5 or 6 different sources, including a large amount of Speckled Bambara seeds, which came from a market in Francistown, Botswana in 2001 via Roughwood Seed Collection in Devon, PA @roughwoodseeds. Our hope is that by including a large amount of diversity, this population will begin to adapt to our unique climate, soils, and ecosystem. This year we are planting mostly the seeds harvested from last year’s mix (selecting for size, diversity, and beauty) - and we are also adding more variety from several other sources, including a couple types from the USDA and a beautiful mix given to me a few years ago by Nate Kleinman of @experimentalfarmnetwork. Also known as bambara beans, jugo beans, ditloo marapo, indlubu, hlanga, njugo, nduhu, phonda, and tindhluwa. #bambaragroundnut #vignasubterranea #seedkeeping #jugobeans
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