Tan Sesame
Sesamum indicum

days to maturity: 85 days
plant spacing: 2 plants per foot
sunlight requirements: 6-14 hours
look out for: overwatering, it loves well drained soil
harvest notes: harvest seed pods as dry as possible but before they burst open
annual

Sesame is a unique crop that we have grown for ourselves before but never offered as a plant for sale before. More and more small farmers are planting modest crops of sesame and we did the same this year since it will make a fun crop to harvest and use at home. Sesame is the oldest seed oil crop known to humanity, and this variety came from India. Sesame is prized for its ability to grow well in very dry & poor soils. It withstands high heats, drought, and its easy to grow, so keep that in mind when caring for & planting it in your potentially over-fertilized garden that you water daily. The plants flower young and will continue to flower & make seed pods for its short lifetime, and the key to proper harvesting is getting to the seed pods when they are dry but haven’t burst open yet. Farms will harvest the whole plant and hang it upside-down in a drying room to allow the pods to burst open and drop seeds onto a waiting cloth, so create yourself a small scale version of that system to catch your sesames as they are released from the pods.