Consider Adding Sugar Snap Peas to Your List For Early Season Harvests.
Normally, you plant Sugar Snap peas in early spring. But we live in a very temperate climate (zone 9) and also have a small greenhouse, so we planted Sugar Snap peas the day after the New Year.
Yesterday, we got our first harvest of these delicious veggies. We were going to eat them with dinner, but the kids ran off with the bowl and ate them before the rest of the meal was on the table. No matter; any vegetable in high demand with our kids, is a welcome veggie in our house.
And there's nothing like sugar snap peas. The are so crunchy and sweet. And the yields are higher on Sugar Snaps because you eat the pods as well as the peas. This higher yield is particularly nice when growing vegetables in the limited space within a greenhouse.
The variety I planted this year is called Super Sugar Snap from Burpee. This variety grows about six feet tall, but you can find bush varieties that are more compact if you prefer not to trellis them.
Generally, you harvest Sugar Snaps in about 70 days. Ours took a little over 90 days due to our super early planting.
If you decide to grow snap peas, remember that they fix nitrogen using special bacteria. If you are growing peas in an area for the first time, I'd advice you to add the bacteria to the soil to ensure healthy plants. Burpee and other companies sell the bacterial inoculant under a variety of names, but they generally include the words "pea and bean booster" in the product description.
Spring is here. If you have space in your garden, you may want to give Sugar Snaps a try.
Ok, so we planted these for the first time this year. They're blooming and won't be long. But, having lived a rural "sheltered" life...what do you do with them? We never had them as kids, and we ate EVERYTHING out of the garden. The only way I've ever had them is in stir-fry. Are they also good raw, or just steamed with butter? I usually only fix stir-fry once a month or so. Please tell me what to do with all of these things.
Posted by: Teresia | 05/15/2010 at 06:59 AM
Hi Teresia: Most of the time, we just eat them raw. In fact, they often don't make it into the refrigerator because my kids eat them up. You may be tempted to harvest Sugar Snaps early but you should wait till peas are well developed in the pod, like traditional English peas. Test by trying a pod or two and then make the call on when to harvest. I'm providing a link to a web site with lots of recipes. Type "Sugar Snap Peas" into the search box and you'll get a bunch of ideas. Thanks for reading and posting!
http://www.epicurious.com
Posted by: Mark Delman | 05/16/2010 at 07:21 AM