Siberian Pea Shrub 🌱 Abundant Soil Building, Food, Fodder & Seeds
I was lucky enough to harvest Siberian Peas from shrubs at a friend's Homestead. On January 5th I sowed a bunch Siberian Peas to get some started for my future food forest (and still have plenty extra to share)! This week they are starting to come up!
Interestingly the Siberian Peas are sprouting at a similar time with the peas and fava beans. Now that I think about it that doesn't surprise me because they are cold hardy and so sprouting in early spring when there is still chance of frost wouldn't be an issue.
Siberian Pea Shrub – Caragana arborescens
Life cycle: Perennial / Ease of propagation: Moderate / Hardiness zone: 2-7
Siberian Pea Shrub is a deciduous, fast growing, nitrogen fixing shrub (or small tree) that is extremely cold hardy. Consider Siberian Pea Shrubs for your food forests, hedgerows, or nitrogen fixing companions for your orchard trees. The nitrogen fixing quality improves the soil around the root zone of the Siberian Pea shrub and they can be grown as “sacrificial” companions to your other trees or in your polycultures improving the soil around your other shrubs, herbs and annuals.
This legume is an amazing fodder plant, especially for birds such as chickens and turkeys. In the summer when the pods ripen, they split open and the shells twist shooting the small peas to the ground around the base of the tree. A perfect self feeding machine for your birds which can be planted in the chicken run, as a living fence/hedgerow or throughout your property encouraging the birds to explore.
Siberian Pea shrub is also a bee fodder shrub as its attractive yellow spring pea blossoms call out to the bees and bumblebees to forage its nectar.
Humans can also enjoy the Siberian Peas. The small dense peas are about the size of lentil beans and can be cooked in the same way, that is they small, leguminous and mild in flavor. They would work well in curries such as Dahl or cooked with tomatoes to make a vegan Bolognese. Practically speaking the peas are small and somewhat time consuming to harvest when you compare them to larger beans. But when you factor in the Siberian Pea shrub is a Perennial and the soil around it does not need to be tilled each season, nor does it need to be replanted each year, the time saved in preparation may just make up for the time it takes to harvest!
The bark is useful in making coordage.
A blue dye can be obtained from the leaves.
Like many Fabeaecea’s, Siberian Pea Shrub can be a coppice tree for fodder, chop and drop mulching or fedgerows. Check out this account of creating an attractive semi-impermeable cold hardy living hedgerow, layed English style:
http://www.nordicminifarm.com/2014/04/laying-siberian-peashrub-hedge/
http://www.nordicminifarm.com/2016/02/laying-siberian-peashrub-hedge-english-style-follow-up/
Sowing Instructions
Pre-soak stored seed in warm water for 24 hours. If seed has not visibly swollen, scarify the seed by nicking the seed coat with a file or knife and re-soak. Then sow the soaked seeds ½ – 1 inch deep in a pot and keep moist until they germinate. Prick out to their own pots when the seedlings have several sets of true leaves. Transplant them the following spring.
References
- Trees for Gardens, Orchards and Permaculture, Martin Crawford
- Edible Forest Gardens, Dave Jacke & Eric Toensmeier
- http://tcpermaculture.com/site/2013/05/13/permaculture-plants-pea-trees/
Siberian Pea Shrub Seeds are available for STEEM, SBD and USD
View our entire Seeds of Abundance seed catalog at Homesteaders Co-op
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I just love enjoying your beautifully laid out well done post @sagescrub. I think this Bush grows here very well, and there's lots of it and is called 'karagana'. I adore this wild bush! And, often ate the peas raw when i would play in the trees as a child. It's super cool to know we could actually harvest & enjoy these peas in meals like dahl. My mother would really think I'd lost it if i told her that! Very neat tidbit. Very very cool! #foodisfree
Thank you @yogajill! Yes! Caragana! I have never seen it in the wild, but I have known it in a few homesteads I visited or worked for and really appreciate this plant :) Haha!
I don't know if they are wild or not here. They can sure grow like mad crazy though. They make such a good boundary keeper. Such a wild bush! It's cool you took a liking to it. I feel like many see it as a nuisance around here. I've always had a fondness for it! The bees just love the blossoms. They get thick with buzzing.
That's the way I feel about blackberries around here. Farmers are annoyed with the invasive blackberries, but maybe they should just farm blackberries and sell jam and pies and syrup!!
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Something is wrong with our Siberian peas. They grow less than 10 cm per year. And two years they were destroyed by snails. So in 5 years they're less than knee high. They were also started from seed.
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That is unfortunate. I don't have enough experience to know why that is. This is my first time personally growing them. I visited a homestead that had somewhat similar siberian peas several years in and they were still very small, similar size to yours. They were in a mixed pine forest edge with very sandy soil. The photos in this post were taken from a friend's homestead only about 7 or 8 years old and rich loamy soil. I'm sure there are other factors besides the soil but that's the first thing I am thinking about when I compare those two situations... I wonder what your soil is like?
I'd try to answer that to help Geri, if I might?
Our soil is Vertisol, a rather heavy black clay that's high in nutrients. The valley we're situated is an ancient lake bed. I'm thinking that the siberian peas would like a poorer soil and maybe better drainage or lighter soil. I planted some Elaeagnus angustifolia from seed and while this plant grows around the countryside in rocky outcrops or in recent excavations with very poor soil, it struggles in our soil. Most are less than 1 meter in size.... and they say it's invasive :D Well not in our garden it's not!
If time permits come autumn, I'll uproot one or two of those and plant them in a hole with a bucket of sand added and see what happens.
I lived for 30 years in Siberia, but never seen Siberian Pea Shrub there :)
Now that is ironic!
Something else to make more yummy dahl with? Yes please! 😋
Putting this post fwd into the c-squared curation community to hopefully get it more of the support & audience it deserves.
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Aww thank you @artemislives!! You are so sweet .. I appreciate the curation effort :)