Has anyone grown sesame? I’ve been looking at it, and it looks like it’s a very drought tolerant plant that loves high heat. Even more importantly, it’s not just the seeds that are edible – the leaves are, too. So it’d be quite a good use of space. The flowers are pretty, too.
Here’s Epic Gardening’s article about it:
Does anyone have experience growing this species?
We’ve been growing sesame for a couple years here in the Portland, OR area. Our location is fairly chilly and damp, so we grow them in a high tunnel for added warmth. They do decently but don’t get as big as pictures I see. Still get a decent enough seed harvest that it seems worth it for our own personal use. Didn’t realize the leaves are edible!
We got seed from Peace Seedlings, they have a grex population called “Shades of Sesame” that has an assortment of earth-toned seed colors, have been very happy with the genetics, but don’t have other experience to compare to.
I have been debating on benne or standard sesame. Benne has a better flavor and less oil and standard has less flavor and more oil.
With greens in mind maybe benne will be better, as it’s more of a flavor build.
Sesame oil is great also, good all around oil.
Cool! It sounds like a have a new species I want to play with! 
I’ve grown it at small farm scale. Yes, it’s heat loving and moderately drought tolerant, besides fairly attractive.
How often have you found you need to water it? Just how drought tolerant it is will determine where I put it.
If it’s the sort of plant that can be grown in 90-100 degree temperatures in full sun without any water at all from April through September, then hot dog, it can go with my hollyhocks!
If it’s the sort of plant that needs water about once a month, then it should go with my sunchokes and apple trees.
If it’s the sort of plant that needs water about once a week, then it should go with my squashes and beans.
We grew it dryland with typical year 30 inches total precipitation, about 2 inches of rain each month in the summer, and high temperatures typically in the 95-100 degree range.
Thank you! That’s excellent attention to detail!
In my climate, which basically only gets summer rain in August (and then it’s about three or four inches of rain in one week, good grief 
), it sounds to me like they’ll need once-a-month deep watering, which is roughly in line with my apple trees. That sounds reasonable! Perhaps I could also test some out in my unwatered front yard, just in case they can handle that, too – I suspect they could survive it, just not produce nearly as much of a harvest, like the sunchokes I put there.
I would definitely try a few unirrigated plants.
… before there were automated weather stations, there was my grandma’s calendar, where she wrote down how much rain she dumped out of the gauge every day. We’ve got records for her front yard going back to 1950.
Wow, that’s so cool! Have you noticed any interesting trends worth sharing?
