Like the ground bean, we planted the pink cow-pea within maize plantation. There are other colors of the cow pea like the black ones, red ones and white ones, but we preferred the pink ones that we grew up with as children.
Both cow-pea and the ground bean are very similar in development and way of production. Cow-pea bears the same traits like the bean in enriching the soil with their nodules and providing ground cover as they crawl and choke weeds.
And like the beans, we planted the remains of what we bought for cooking.
We planted them at the same time as the bean except that we did not mix the two. One was planted in one section within the maize plantation and the other in another section in order to make our work easier during harvesting.
Cow-peas were eaten either young and green or dry.
Cow-peas like beans had to be protected from destruction by poultry, sheep and goats. Birds also loved picking the young forming pods. The remains after harvesting formed part of the cow feed or burnt into ashes to be used as salt.
All cow peas produced were consumed by us.