Thinking of planting cowpea, here are the best farming practices for this legume.
Planting
- Cowpea plants can’t bear the transplantation process, so sow the seeds directly in your selected garden space. You can choose a raised garden bed instead to cultivate the plants with equal facility as a garden area a well!
- To start the planting process, choose the place where you need to sow the seeds and fill that area with the require amount of fertilized soil with loamy sands and sandy soil in equal percentages.
- Make sure that you have mixed enough composted organic manure to your soil before starting the sowing
- Now, plant your cowpeas seeds 1 to 1.5 inches deep into the soil and 2 to 4 inches apart from each other.
- Generally, cowpeas plant in the bounty of number thus you need to plant then in several rows. Leave at least 30 to 36 ̎ space in-between two row to provide each plant adequate space to grow to the fullest!
- After planting the seeds spread a thin layer of composted soil from the top of your seeds and water them heavily.
- Then next step is to wait for the germination which may occur within 8 to 10 day after the plantation.
- Provide 70 to 80 ̊ F temperature to your seeds, if you want to speed up the germination period.
- Make sure that the planting place is getting full sunlight a day and the drainage system is working appropriately or not!
- After the germination, you need to start the seedling process for providing each plant some more room to grow to the utmost. Try to separate each germinated plant 3 to 4 ̎ apart from each other, in this process.
- Now, after accomplishing the whole planting process precisely, you just need to take appropriate care of your plants and protect them from troubleshooting issues.
Care
- Mulching is the initial stage of taking care of your cowpea plant, as it will hold the heat for a long while to the base of your plants, and facilitate the growth of plants hugely.
- Fertilize the soil with those fertilizers which are rich in nitrogen content like fish emulsions.
- Water frequently and try not to allow the surface of your soil dry for a single moment. However, watering frequently doesn’t mean to make your soil soggy or soaked, so be certain the supplying water is draining well.
- Weeds are a very common trouble to the growth of cowpeas, so clear the weeds whenever you see anything like this near the planting land.
- Mulching will help you in this endeavor too, especially the hay type mulch. Use black plastic to mulch the base soil if you want to clutch the warmth for an extended period.
- Provide stalking system to the plants, once they reach the height of 6-inch tall, particularly the pole beans, which claims a proper support for climbing.
- You can apply a side dressing of compost or fertilizer about half way during their growing session.
- Don’t let the leaves wet whenever you would water your plants, or this would instigate the fungal or bacterial disease of cowpeas more efficiently!
- Once the cowpea pods will start to grow and developing into the wider form, you can prune or cut out the extra stems from the plants to give the crops some more space to grow.
- Finally, you just need to get proper protection from any kind of typical pests and diseases from every probable way.
Source: trulyhandpicked.com
