Garbs: This is the Palouse

Garbs:

Aka garbanzo beans, chickpeas. This is a relatively new crop to the Palouse. Typically we grow grain: Soft White wheat, Dark Northern Spring wheat, and malting barley.

We also grow rape seed of the type that will be made into Canola oil. My header has a picture of one of our Canola crops in bloom.

Then there's dry peas and lentils. The Palouse is known as the Dry Pea and Lentil capital of the world. If there's money in it, we grow 'em.

But for the past decade or so, there's been more money in garbs than in peas or lentils. Thus on our farm, the acreage that used to go to the spring manure crops: rape seed, dry peas and lentils, now goes into garbs instead.

When I say "manure," I don't mean manure in the traditional sense, but rather crops that are planted in the spring, whose viney residues help to nourish the soil with different nutrients than you would've gotten from straw (from wheat and barley) after the crop's been harvested. When the ground is turned under after harvest, it's composting for a different set of soil nutrients.

Our garb market is mostly the middle east, but I think that Americans are now becoming more aware of chickpeas and are eating them in salads and hummus. They're very nutritious and delicious.

Photo Courtesy.