Growing Ancient LEGUMES

ONCE MY DAUGHTERS GREW UP and moved out, I had the opportunity to make my garden my own and fill it with vegetables I love. My garden has undergone many transformations since, as I’ve experimented each season with new crops. I’ve grown foods I’d never heard of before, and I’ve tried to tackle some favorites that seemed too challenging to grow years before.

For the last two gardening seasons, I’ve undertaken growing chickpeas in my garden. I’d never looked into chickpeas as a crop because I thought they needed a long, hot growing season. Living at a 7,000-foot elevation in the Rocky Mountains, I feel blessed if I get 90 frost-free growing days. I’ve been making hummus and falafel for years with canned chickpeas, but growing my own chickpeas always seemed unthinkable.

At a spring seed swap, I received a small envelope of chickpeas that’d grown outside of Mexico City at an elevation of 7,500 feet, in a climate very similar to the mountains of New Mexico. Finally, here was my opportunity to experiment in the garden! I