Grow Your Own Sesame Plant

By Kelly Miller

If you love adding sesame seeds to baked goods, salads, and savory dishes, it might not have occurred to you that you could be growing a sesame plant in your own garden. Surprisingly, sesame plants (Sesame indicum) are easy to grow. They only grow as perennials in very warm climates, but they’re productive annuals in cooler zones.

Only around 4% of global sesame seed production occurs in the Americas, which makes homegrown seeds a special treat. Here’s everything you need to know to get started with growing sesame plants in your home garden.

Sesame Plants: Basic Facts

Sesame indicum has been cultivated for thousands of years, including in ancient Rome, Egypt, and China. Sesame plants thrive in warm climates, with most of today’s sesame farming occurring in tropical Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Sesame plants are grown from seeds that sprout tall, upright stems, roughly resembling short corn stalks. Plants grow to heights of 2–3 feet (60–90 cm), covered in long, thin leaves. In midsummer, white, purple, or pink bell-shaped blooms appear. These flowers produce green pods, stuffed with the tiny white seeds that the plant is known for.

Which Sesame Seeds to Grow

Gardeners typically grow sesame plants from seed. The seeds sold in grocery stores for culinary purposes are often viable, but you’ll have better success rates buying from a seed supplier.

You can grow a sesame plant with traditional white seeds, or go with a black-seed variety. Black sesame seeds are crunchier and have a stronger, nuttier flavor.

How to Start Sesame Seeds

Sesame plants are warm-climate perennials. In the US, their range as perennials is limited to USDA Zones 10 and 11. However, they grow well as annuals elsewhere, including in much cooler regions.

In most climates, it’s necessary to start seeds indoors, before it’s warm enough for them to survive in the ground. This ensures that the plants can start growing in time to produce a summer harvest.

Follow these steps to start sesame plants:

1. Sow seeds in trays or small containers around five weeks before the expected last frost date.

2. Use a soilless seed starting mix.

3. Sow seeds ¼ inch (0.6 cm) deep in 2 inches (5 cm) of soil.

4. Keep the medium moist until the seeds germinate (usually after around 12 days).

5. The use of a seed heating mat under the tray helps encourage good germination.

6. Be sure there is just one plant per cell. Thin the seedlings if needed.

7. Reduce watering and avoid saturating the tray, allowing the medium to dry out between waterings.

8. Once a true set of leaves has taken shape, transplant seedlings into larger containers.

9. Two or three weeks after the last frost date, transplant the young plants outdoors to an area that receives full sun. Provide each young plant with at least one square foot of space. In cooler regions, you can improve a sesame plant’s productivity by surrounding it with black plastic mulch that helps heat up the soil.

Sesame Plant Care

Soil, Fertilizer, and Water

• Sesame plants require fertile, light, well-draining soil. They’re tolerant of different soil types as long as the soil doesn’t retain too much moisture and isn’t overwatered.
• Throughout the growing season, feed the plant around once per month with a general-purpose fertilizer.
• Water sesame plants when the top inch of soil is dry, and take care to avoid overwatering.

Light

Sesame plants thrive in full sun, which means at least six hours of direct sunlight each day. With less light, a sesame plant may survive through the summer but is less likely to produce a bountiful harvest.

How to Harvest Sesame Seeds

After they’re pollinated, sesame flowers produce small green fruit pods. A typical pod contains between 50 and 100 seeds.

A sesame seed harvest may begin as soon as 90 days after the plant was put in the ground. Ripening happens from the bottom up, starting with the pods that are lowest on the stem. As pods mature, they brown. Then, the pod begins splitting open at its tip.

You may choose to let seeds fully mature and dry on the plant. However, be sure to harvest pods before they open up so much that the seeds spill onto the ground. Collect pods by gently twisting them off or snipping them.

If you harvest pods before they’ve split, put them in a brown paper bag where they can finish drying out. As the pods split open, they’ll naturally release their seeds. Use a colander atop a bowl to finish separating the seeds and pods.

A successful harvest might yield between ¼ cup and a ½ cup of sesame seeds from each plant.

Discover More Unusual Garden Crops

Sesame isn’t a typical garden plant, but gardeners who give it a try are often pleased with the results. Sesame plants are attractive, non-fussy plants that reward growers with a unique garden harvest.

If you’re looking for another atypical addition to your veggie garden, consider chickpeas. Even a small plot can produce a huge bounty of delicious chickpeas, which can be enjoyed fresh, dried, or canned. Learn more here: How to Grow Chickpeas.