Micah grasspea

(Lathyrus sativus)

A plant with many common names also called khesari, cicerchia, Ethiopian lentil, and chickling vetch. If you find lentils too hard to grow in our climate this plant is a good substitute, but it is really its own unique crop. Tan/green wrinkled seeds look like a cross between a lentil and a pea and taste deliciously like that cross. The plants are great: short, bushy vines grow into a tangled thicket and bear a profusion of pretty little flowers which look rather like a flock of butterflies have landed on your patch! The flowers are followed by pods which, if you look closely, you will find are three-sided. They are also easy to harvest: cut the whole vines when the pods are dry and trample them to get the seeds out.

This plant is a relative of the sweet peas which are popular ornamentals. Like them, it has a reputation for being sort of toxic. However, while Lathyrus sativus has long been recognized to cause neurolathyrism, a degenerative paralysis which may be due to a compound they contain, it has a parallel reputation as a perfectly safe food which has been eaten for centuries by many people across a wide area, from sub-Saharan Africa to Portugal to the Balkans to India. The secret is in their remarkable adaptability: this was a plant which could survive droughts and floods, and so in famine years it occasionally became a dietary staple. Therein lies the risk: if this is a minor food in your diet, you will be able to eat it for years without harm. However, if it is more than about a third of your protein, lathyrism sets in. So unless all other crops fail, you should be fine. We eat it frequently; no ill effects so far!

It also makes a good cover crop, and unlike most other leguminous covers, it is easy to harvest your own seed.

A note on the name: We acquired our original seed from Annapolis Seeds in Nova Scotia without a variety name. However, we are aware that there are actually many different strains of grasspea in the world. So we gave ours a new variety name so that future humans will know that it came through Carrick Seeds’ hands at some point in its history. 95 days to maturity.