In the Garden Articles

Fall Planting: Sweet Garden Peas

by Joan S. Bolton

It's time to give peas a chance.

The frozen varieties from the grocery store might not be the most exciting of all vegetables.

But grow peas in your winter garden and you'll find that fresh from the vine, they're tender, crisp and remarkably sweet.

Peas were considered quite a delicacy in earlier times. Thomas Jefferson is said to have grown more than 30 types in his garden in Virginia. At the court at Versailles, Louis XIV, the king of conspicuous consumption, exalted the green pea.

And according to the National Gardening Bureau, archaeologists uncovered peas in tombs at Troy dating from 1450 BC, while a Chinese legend tells the story of an emperor who discovered the pea 5,000 years ago.

Today, peas are easy to grow. They're at their best in cooler weather and fall is the perfect time to sow the seeds directly in the ground. The vines mature in 60 to 70 days. If you continue to plant every few weeks from now until Christmas, you'll have fresh garden peas into next spring.

Getting Started

There are three types of peas: classic English peas, snow or sugar peas, and modern snap peas. Which type you grow depends on whether you plan to eat the whole pod or just the peas inside.

English peas form traditional, plump pods that yield fat peas for shelling. Don't bother with their pods: they're tough, with little taste.

Harvest your English peas when the pods are swollen, and still a lush green. Once they grow dull and you can see distinct ridges for each pea, they've begun to decline. The pods are composed of up to 25 percent sugar. Just like with sweet corn, that sugar begins to turn to starch as soon as the pods are plucked from the vine. So pick and shell them right before your meal. Steaming or stir frying retains the most nutrients.

English peas have been around for centuries and heirloom varieties abound. Little Marvel, from England, will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year. It forms a vigorous bush, rather than a vine. The Cook's Garden offers a lemon-yellow heirloom from India and a purple-pod heirloom used in soups in Holland. Much newer is Mr. Big, an All-American Selections winner in 2000. Mr. Big bears pods that grow 4 inches long and yield eight to 10 peas inside.

Snow or sugar peas date back hundreds of years in Asia. These peas form thin, nearly transparent edible, crunchy pods.

Harvest your snow peas when the peas are immature and widely spaced. Don't wait for them to fill out their pods: they'll be past their prime. Stir fry, saute or steam the pods, or toss them fresh into salads.

Mammoth Melting Sugar is one of the best-known snow peas. The heirloom variety bears large pods on 4-foot-tall plants. Oregon Giant stays more compact, reaching only 2 1/2-feet tall yet still yielding plenty of 4 to 5-inch crispy pods.

Snap peas are a modern invention that came about when a plant scientist, Dr. Calvin Lamborn, discovered an interesting new pea in a test field. Introduced to the public in 1979, snap peas have a thick pod wall that stays juicy through maturity. They're crunchy when raw or sauteed. They can also be snapped into pieces to be cooked, or shelled and eaten like English peas.

Harvest your snap peas early to eat fresh or quick-cook like snow peas. Let them mature if you'd like to shell the pods or cook them snapped. Basically, you can harvest snap peas anytime from when you can scarcely detect the peas to when they've filled out the pods.

Super Sugar Snap is an improvement on Lamborn's original, and Park Seed calls it the sweetest snap pea ever. The 5-foot-tall, disease-resistant vines bear heavy crops in about 60 days. Be sure to provide a trellis to support them. Sugar Sprint grows just half that size, and bears 3-inch, stringless snap peas. It's disease-resistant, too.

In the Garden

Peas grow best with cool temperatures. But they still need sun. Be sure to provide at least four to six hours of sunlight a day.

They also like loose, fertile, somewhat sandy soil with good drainage. Dig down about a foot. Work in lots of well-aged compost. Then create shallow furrows. They should be about an inch deep and run north to south, so the sun crossing the sky from east to west will shine on both sides of the plants as they grow.

Space the furrows about 2 feet apart.

For taller, vining peas, set up string trellises. For compact, bushy types, poke bits of multi-branched tree trimmings upside down in the ground.

Soak the pea seeds in water overnight, then sow them 2 to 3 inches apart. Sprinkle an inoculant on top as you go, to promote better germination and growth. Cover the seeds with an inch of soil, then apply an inch-thick layer of loose mulch, such as straw, compost or chopped, dry leaves. Don't mulch with fresh grass clippings. They contain too much nitrogen, which will promote leaves at the expense of pods. In general, don't worry about fertilizing.

Also cover the furrows with netting to prevent birds from devouring your crop.

Water thoroughly. Keep the soil damp until the seedlings emerge, which should be in a week to 10 days. Back off watering to once or twice a week, depending on whether it rains.

Don't bother thinning your peas. The bush types will knit together and clamber over your impromptu tree trimmings to hold themselves up. The vining types will send out tendrils to climb your trellis. They'll cling on their own, unless you garden in wind. If that's the case, secure the vines with twine or green stretchy garden tape several times during the season.

As the pods ripen, pinch them off or use scissors to cut them from the vines.

Harvest your pods frequently to encourage the plants to continue producing. Allowing your pods to linger past their prime will trigger an early decline.

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Garden Peas Sources

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

2278 Baker Creek Rd., Mansfield, MO 65704, (417) 924-8917

www.rareseeds.com

Burpee

W. Atlee Burpee & Co., Warminster, PA 18974, (800) 888-1447

www.burpee.com

The Cook's Garden

PO Box C5030, Warminster, PA 18974, (800) 457-9703

www.cooksgarden.com

Nichols Garden Nursery

1190 Old Salem Rd., NE, Albany, OR 97321, (800) 422-3985

www.nicholsgardennursery.com

Park's Seeds

Geo. W. Park Seed Co., Inc., 1 Parkton Ave., Greenwood, SC 29647, (800) 845-3369

www.parkseed.com

National Garden Bureau

1311 Butterfield Rd., Suite 310, Downers Grove, IL 60515, (630) 963-0770

www.ngb.org

Seeds of Wisdom

Garden peas fix nitrogen in the soil. Rotate your peas through your vegetable beds every winter and you'll give your summer crops a nice boost of nutrients.