the cowpeas are flowering...the top photo is from this morning...some fine looking lavender colored blooms with some darker purple highlights in the center...i noticed several buds on wednesday and as i examined them i saw there was a node just beneath them that was secreteting fluid and that there were three or four ants on every single one i found...i wondered what was up in an email to dr. forgey and she sent me some links to some articles...those tell me that ants play a minor role in the pollinization scheme cowpeas have evolved...they do polinate some plants, but most cowpeas in humid environments ( and i do believe we qualify) are self-pollinating...the ants , bees, and any other insects are a backup...the flowers open in the morning, close by noon, and fall off the same day they bloom so you have to be out by mid-morning or so to catch them...obviously they have been at it for a while as i am finding pods on the ends of some stems, a few of which are fairly large, so the plants are producing seeds...i planted the cowpeas to fix nitrogen, not as a crop, and i planted them rather late...some in june, around the asparagus, and some in july in the potato bed after the harvest...so i did not really expect them to reproduce...now it's a race with the first hard frost...it would be nice to be able to harvest any seeds from our own plants to use as next season's green manure...a sort of continuity from the first season to the second so i hope it will work out...i still have quite a few of the seeds i purchased this year, and my reading tells me that the seeds can remain viable for more than two years...but i'd still rather grow our own.
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