Thanks Ruthie and Jim. I realize that they are not for everyone, but I really do like them. I guess that one of my favorite meals is some of them along with some hot buttered cornbread, fresh cream style corn off the cob, new potatoes, and sliced tomatoes, meat optional, don't have to have it. The only tomatoes out of the garden that I have so far are some cherry tomatoes, but they sure do taste good, and it won't be long before I start getting some . I think that they are healthy, easy to raise and being legumes fix some nitrogen in your soil too. I have started finding a few stink bugs showing up in the garden, and just late this evening found my first hornworm, but one end of him looks atrophied like perhaps one of those parasitic wasps may have already done him some damage. He had already got the leaves on . When I tracked him down and located him, he was waving that damaged end like he was in agony of something. I put him in a glass jar with a lid and some leaves in there with him to see how he looks in the morning. Bill P.

It would be cheaper to just buy a bag at the grocery store! A pound of dried seed only costs about $1, cheaper than shipping! I have planted a lot of different dried seed from the grocery store and they work well. Unless you are looking for a particular variety.

I think I can answer the original question from info passed down from my dad, born in 1899 on a small farm in central Arkansas. Much of the population in the last half of the 1800s lived on small farms where the well being of the family was closely tied to their skill as gardeners. Which was done without the aid of fertilizers, hybrids, or insecticides. Blackeyed peas were a common crop. Since they stored well as dried peas they could provide the family with a good food source for many months. Southern peas are a legume that uses symbiotic bacteria to supply itself with nitrogen, so a good crop could be had on relative infertile soils. Even better, in many soils of the southeast, the nitrogen fixed by the bacteria persisted into the following year, leading to better crops of any kind. Crop rotation from peas to other crops was known to be a good practice. Now for the Good Luck. Those families that had planted so much of their land in peas that they were still eating them at the new year had, by doing so, enriched their soil with the nitrogen that would lead to better crops in the following year. The scenario repeated itself enough til people began to associate peas on new years day as a sign of good luck to follow, and a superstition was born.

This is why I LOVE this site! I had the same exact question and here it is pre-answered for me and everything. I wanted to do something different with BEPs this New Years and the caviar sounded like a fresher alternative. Christine