Legumes

Legumes are considered among the island’s summer crops, grown in the traditional “argasés” fields, where the soil is carefully prepared before sowing—worked more than twice, as locals say—much more than is typical for cereal cultivation. Most of Lemnos’s legumes come from local or native varieties and are organically grown, since production is primarily for household consumption, with only a small portion reaching the market.

A defining characteristic of Lemnian legumes is the manual labor involved, from cultivation through harvesting and threshing. The choice of soil for sowing plays a crucial role in the quality of the final product, influencing both the flavor of the cooked legumes and their cooking time.

Dryland cultivation on Lemnos includes beans (such as the white-mouthed “Aspromytiko” and black-eyed varieties), broad beans, chickpeas, lupins (“lempnaria”), afkos (the well-known fava bean and "lathouri" a fava variety brought by refugees from Asia Minor), and fava beans. Each family preserves its own seeds, passed down through generations, renewing them every one or two years by sowing in different plots and practicing crop rotation.

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