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Shambalileh Iranian Fenugreek
Trigonella foenum-graecum
Tasty fenugreek variety from Iran. Fenugreek is a delicious and important food and medicine herb in Iranian culture. It transforms the flavor of whatever dish it’s in, so it’s an important part of some iconic dishes such as Ghormeh Sabzi. The leaves can be found dried in many ethnic grocers in the US, but is harder to find fresh. These plants grow about a foot tall, and are easy to grow for leaf harvest or for seed. They can be grown in the winter in mild climates, which may give you a longer season before it goes to seed. The plants flower relatively quickly, but you can cut and eat the leaf despite that until the seed pods get too big and fibrous. When this plant is happy, you can harvest it by cutting quite deep into the plant, and it’ll grow back to give you several big harvests.
Description and photos by Sama of Reyhan Herb Farm.
Days to maturity: 50 days to harvest, 105 days to seed
Seeds per pack: 75
Germination rate: 81% on 09/26/2024
Planting / harvesting notes
They can be thickly direct sown, but if you want to be more careful about spacing, space each seed 4 inches apart. These plants will tolerate some shade, but ideally want full sun. They germinate quickly (within a week usually) and squirm out of the soil a bit, so be sure to bury them about an inch under the surface of the soil.
Seed keeping notes
To grow for seed, allow the fenugreek plants to flower and grow mature seed pods. To make sure the seed is as mature and healthy as possible, wait until the plant dies at the end of its season to harvest seed. The seed pods require very hot and dry conditions to easily open. I have been threshing them by picking off all of the pods and then blasting them for 20-30 minutes with a dehydrator to get the pods to crumble away more easily, then stepping on the pods to crush them before winnowing.
