Homegrown Lentils | Garden Organic

Summary

Lentils are already grown commercially in the UK on a small scale, amongst a group of farmers spearheaded by the company Hodmedods. We wanted to investigate the feasibility of growing them in the garden.

Lentils grew quite easily in most people’s gardens with few problems. They are a low growing, sprawling plant with small pea like flowers. These give rise to large numbers of pods.

Although it was possible to grow the plants and produce a crop, the process of harvesting was extremely time consuming.

It was encouraging that the yields achieved were in a similar ball park to commercial yields in the UK, but on a small scale, it was a great deal of work to achieve a small amount of produce, when the land could be more productively used to grow something else.

Many people observed nodules on the roots of the lentils, and it has been suggested that perhaps the plants could more usefully be used as a green manure to fix nitrogen and add organic matter to the soil. This is an idea that deserves to be explored further.

Background

Most of us have eaten lentils, but have not thought much about the plant itself. The lentil is a low growing bushy plant, producing pods, which most commonly contain two lentils. Lentils are legumes so will form nodules that harbour the nitrogen-fixing Rhizobium bacteria. They will grow on a range of soil types. They are reasonably cold tolerant but their ability to tolerate frost varies with variety and the stage of growth.

The lentil is cultivated in many parts of the world, including Canada, much of Asia, Australia and Southern Europe. Canada is by far the biggest exporter of lentils, followed by India.

Lentils come in a range of types and varieties, including green and brown lentils which are sold with the coats, and red and yellow types which are sold dehulled, with the coats removed. There are also speciality types such as ‘Puy’ which have to be grown in a specific region of France if they are to given the ‘Puy’ label.

Lentils are a good source of protein, containing about 25% when uncooked, decreasing to about 10% when cooked, due to the extra water absorbed. They are also a very good source of folate and B vitamins.

Lentil growing in the UK

The humble lentil was once a common staple peasant food and there is evidence that it was cultivated in the UK, before it became less popular as a food. Unfortunately it is difficult to find records of it being grown, because it was rarely traded, and more likely to be only grown for home consumption. More recently, Hodmedods, a company specialising in producing UK grown legumes and grains have tried a number of varieties, obtained from Sweden and France, and managed to produce several commercial crops in the UK. We wanted to test the feasibility of growing them on a garden scale.

Varieties in this trial

Flora produces pale brown round lentils. They have protected Designation of Origin status, and are the only varieties that are allowed to be grown for the Red Label Blond lentils de Saint Flour. The volcanic soils of La Planèze, give them their characteristic taste.

Anicia are small green ‘puy’ lentils. Again, they have protected status, and are the only varieties which are allowed to have the label ‘Green lentils du Berry’ or ‘Green lentils du Puy’. They have a unique peppery taste and retain their shape after cooking.

We are grateful to Hodmedods for donating the seed for this trial. If you would like to find out more about their innovative venture to promote UK grown pulses and grains visit Hodmedod's British Pulses and Grains (hodmedods.co.uk):

Aims of this experiment

1. Assess the feasibility of growing lentils as a food crop on a garden scale.
2. Compare the performance of two varieties at a range of locations
3. Compare the performance of the varieties sown at 2 planting dates – we are interested in how early you can sow them to give them a better head start and a longer growing season.

Methods

Lentils were sown at a rate of 10g in 1 square metre plots in 3 rows 30 cm apart.

2 varieties, Anicia and Flora were sown in different plots, at 2 different planting dates in early April, and one in early May.

Measurements

The following measurements were taken:

• Date of first emergence
• Number of plants emerged
• Date of first flowering
• Date of first pod set
• Number of pods
• Weight of dried beans
• The presence of root nodules

Results

Growth of the plant

Both Flora and Anicia took around 10 days on average to emerge for both the early and the later sowing dates. Typically, we would expect seeds to emerge more quickly when sown later, when the soil is warmer, but in 2019, April was unusually warm followed by a cooler May. There was little difference between Flora and Anicia in time to first flowering and time to first pod set. However, the later sown plants first flowered c. 15 days more quickly after sowing and set pods c. 17 days more quickly.

Table 1: Days from Sowing to Emergence, First flowering and First Pod Set