Last edited by CloCkWeRX on November 13, 2026. View history
Chickpea
Chickpea
How to sow chickpea: Direct seed indoors, transplant seedlings outside after hardening off
Sun requirement for chickpea: Plant in Full Sun
Chickpeas are a cool-season annual legume in the Fabaceae family. They are native to the Middle East and Mediterranean. They can be sprouted indoors in 2-3 days for salads and fresh eating, or grown outside for their seeds. The upright plants do not require staking and grow to a height of about 50cm. They have small, feathery leaves. Flowers are white with blue, violet, or pink veins and form 2.5cm long oblong pods with 1-2 large, cream-colored seeds. Chickpeas can be picked while green and eaten fresh like snap peas, but they are most commonly harvested as a dried bean crop. Chickpeas are high in protein and drought-tolerant. They benefit from an inoculant at planting.
- 6
- plantings
- 1
- harvest
- 1
- seed packet
Chickpea facts
Lifespan
Height
50cmRow Spacing
30cmGrown for
seed harvested 1 timeCrop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For chickpea, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 7°C and a shortest growing cycle of 90 days at its best temperature, about 1350 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your chickpea will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
How members grow chickpeas
Sunniness
Planted from
Harvested for
Photos
Photos
Chickpea crops
Chickpea plantings
Video
Where chickpeas grow
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
What people are saying about chickpeas
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Who's planted chickpeas
- corvi Dining Room containers · salt spring island
- nicolehilder Garden · Yarraville
- tiki19 Drylands unirrigated food forest · Thornlie, Perth,...
Chickpea harvests
-
corvi harvested not specified.
about 7 years ago
corvi harvested not specified.
Find chickpea seeds
View all chickpea seeds
- Purchase seeds via Ebay
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 90 to 180 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Cicer arietinum L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Fabales Leguminosae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -9 °C |
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | heavy, medium |
| Optimal soil fertility | moderate |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours) |
Learn more about chickpeas
Resources outside Growstuff.
