How and When To Plant Peas

Gardeners across the country are getting ready for spring plantings and one of the first crops to be sown are peas.

Peas have their origin in the Eastern Mediterranean in an area that is modern day Syria.  While grown and eaten since 5,000 BC, it wasn't until the 18th century, when sweet varieties were developed in England, that peas became popular as a fresh vegetable.   How thankful we should be to those English breeders because peas are perhaps the only early vegetable that provides such wonderfully sweet flavor.

Growing Peas

Peas prefer cool weather and germinate once temperatures are above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. For those living in the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest, that means it's now time to plant peas.  The rule of thumb is to plant peas about 4 weeks prior to your last frost date. A less scientific, but more memorable, rule of thumb is to plant peas on Saint Patrick's day. 

Peas shoud be planted about 2 inches apart and 1 inch deep.  Some gardeners recommend soaking peas in water overnight to increase germination rates.  I've never done this, but you might want to give it a try if germination has been a problem for you in the past.

Although peas will grow in partial shade, the resulting crop won't be very sweet.  It's best to find a sunny location for them.  Given that other sunny crops such as tomatoes and cucmbers are not in the ground at this time, it should not be hard to find such a place in your garden.

It's fine to work some compost into the soil before planting, but it is not necessary to add any fertilizer. Peas get their nitrogen through a symbiotic relationship with a beneficial soil bacteria that is able to extract nitrogen from the environment.  You can add this beneficial bacteria to your soil prior to planting to help your pea crop and various seed catalogs sell this as pea and bean "inoculant."  Burpee sells it under the name "Burpee Booster"

Peas produce larger crop and are easier to harvest when given some support so I highly recommend that you take this step.  I use wire mesh fence panels that and garden stakes, but bamboo "tee-pee" style trellis are also a good choice. Shorter pea varieties, such as Green Arrow and Maestro, can be inter-planted with oats -- the peas climb up the oat stalks in the same way that beans and corn are sometimes paired together.  

Once in the ground, your seeds will germinate in about a week, although it could take as long as 20 days if the temperature and moisture levels are low.  Once germinated, peas will produce a crop in about 70 days.

Pea Varieties:

Peas come in three basic types as follows:

1. Garden Peas - sometimes referred to as "English" peas, these are what most of us think of first when peas are mentioned.  These varieites have stringy, inedible pods and need to be shelled prior to eating.  Dwarf and semi-dwarf varieties grow to be about 2 feet high, while taller varieties reach about 5 feet in height.  This season our family is growing an heirloom variety called Thomas Laxton.  Other good varieties worth considering include: Green Arrow, Wando, Lincoln, Alderman, Alaska and Laxton's Progress #9. Garden peas are a bit of a change of pace for us since we've grown the second type of pea, snap peas, for the last three years.  
2. Snap Peas -  Regular readers of this blog know that I'm a big fan of snap peas because both the peas and the pods are edible.  This means higher yields and lower work because there's no need to shell them.  I think this makes snap peas a particularly good choice for families with young children or those who have the pleasure of grand children since the kids can munch on them without having to deal with the pod. Some good varieties include: Sugar Snap, Cascadia, Sugar Daddy, and Sugar Sprint.
3. Snow Peas - These are varieties that have an edible pod and are consumed when the peas are immature and the pods are flat.  They are often seen in Asian cooking.  Some well known varieties include: Oregon Sugar Pod, Mammoth Melting, and Dwarf Grey Sugar.

Storing Peas:

In my opinion, peas are best enjoyed when fresh, but there they can be stored for later consumption. by drying, canning and freezing.  Frankly, freezing is so easy and the peas stay so sweet when frozen that I find it hard to recommend that you preserve them any other way.  If you are freezing Garden Peas, remove them from the pod and then follow the following simple steps below for all pea varieties:

1. Wash under cool water.
2. Blanche (quick cook) in boiling water for 90 seconds.
3. Remove the peas and then place into a ice water bath to quickly bring down their temperature.
4. Place into freezer bags, or better yet, vacuum bags, and then store in the freezer.

Comments

[Michaele]

Thanks Mark. Great to know. We never seem to get enough garden peas. Looks like we could plant twice in the season.

[H. Mark Delman]

Im planting a batch with my daughter Lauren this afternoon. She is the pea-lover in our house and eats them before we even get them into the kitchen.

[Joel]

Did I miss read the forum or did you just over look a major pea group.
The Black eye pea(like the music group)is grown & cooked in Mediterranean,Pakistan, African & North America.

[H. Mark Delman]

Hi Joel:

Thanks for asking.

Peas like the ones mentioned in my post are all classified as under the genus Pisum. The black eyed pea is a legume, but not a member of the pea family; it is classified under the genus Vigna. This genus is also different
from another common legume, the bean, that is genus Phaseolus.