How to Grow Peas

Peas have a reputation as cool-weather addicts. But it's a bad rap: By staggering your plantings and choosing heat-resistant varieties, you can enjoy fresh-from-the-garden peas from spring through fall, no matter where you live.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Bypass Pruners
• Compost Makers
• Fertilizers
• Garden Spades
• Garden Trowels
• Hand Cultivators
• Mulch
• Pea Seeds
• Plants

1. Choose a site that gets full sun (a slope with a southern exposure is ideal) and has soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.8 (see "How to Have Your Soil Tested").

2. Make sure your soil drains well - peas can't tolerate wet soil. Digging in plenty of compost should provide the right texture. Avoid any soil additives that are high in nitrogen; like beans, peas are able to capture nitrogen from the air.

3. Grow peas in raised beds if your soil is so heavy it can't be amended easily.

4. Choose your type(s). There are three: English or garden peas (only the seeds are eaten), Chinese or snow peas (picked when the pods have reached full size but the seeds are still small and eaten pod and all), and snap peas (picked when both pod and seeds are mature; both are edible).

5. Sow peas directly in the garden as soon as the soil can be worked, usually about five weeks before the last expected frost. Because the seeds germinate so readily, and because you'll want to make successive plantings, there's no real advantage to buying started plants.

6. Plant the seeds an inch deep, 3 to 4 inches apart, in rows about 3 feet apart. Install supports for peas - even dwarf varieties - when you plant them, and start guiding the vines upward as soon as they're long enough to climb.

7. Plant a different, heat-resistant variety a few weeks after the first sowing. Then 8 to 10 weeks before the first frost date, plant a crop in another bed for an early autumn harvest.

8. Make sure young plants get about 1/2 inch of water a week (1 inch in very sandy soil). When plants begin to flower, they need an inch per week regardless of soil.

9. Help ensure heavy yields by feeding liquid seaweed or compost tea twice during the growing season (see "How to Make Compost Tea").

10. Expect peas to be ready for picking about three weeks after the plants begin to flower.

Tips & Warnings

• For peas to "fix" nitrogen (convert it for use), certain bacteria must be present in the soil. They will be if your site has been cultivated before. But if yours is a brand-new garden, before you plant your seeds, you'll need to coat them with a powder called an inoculant. You'll find inoculants, and instructions for using them, at nurseries and in seed catalogs.

• Peas come in a multitude of varieties. Explore seed catalogs and garden books to find the best choices for your climate.

• Taller, vining varieties can perform double duty in the garden: Not only do they produce heavier yields than their dwarf cousins, but trained on a fence or trellis they're also beautiful, with blue-green foliage and white or lavender flowers.

• Pea vines are delicate and break easily. Once they've grown up, don't poke about in their vicinity any more than you have to until harvest time.

• Peas can fall victim to several diseases, including powdery mildew, fusarium wilt and root rot. Fend them off by choosing disease-resistant varieties, timing your plantings to coincide with cool weather, and rotating crops.