Friday, April 18, 2014

P Is For Peas

Pea seedings in the April garden
I love growing peas. They are one of my favourite crops, as they are very easy for me to grow and I have plenty of opportunities to use them in soups, stews and salads. Peas also release nitrogen into the soil, enriching it, so I like to move my pea crop around so that they can help me doctor my soil.

I planted most of my winter pea crop in March, but I also added a late batch in April. Just for extra.

Site selection: Peas like a sunny spot where it is also protected from winds. In autumn and winter, I usually plant in mine near the fence barrier between the vegetable garden and the main yard.

The space gets sun most of the day and the fence is ideal for allowing the plant to be staked to. In summer I plant my peas along with my maize crop. The pea plants can then run up the maize plants.

I've also grown dwarf peas in soil that seems to be deficient in nutrients, more to help the soil than because I expect to get a big yield out of it. Dwarf varieties don't really need much support, so they are happy to go anywhere as long as there is good drainage and sun.


Soil preparation: My soil is clay, with a good dose of manure and a bit of compost and mulch.

Planting process: I usually use one of those small plastic spades to make a small flat-bottomed trench that is 5cm (2in) deep and 15cm (6in) wide on soil that has been softened for planting. I then sow the seeds  in the trench approximately 7.5cm (3in) apart and cover with soil and move on to the next row.

Or sometimes when I'm feeling lazy, I take  a walk along my bed, basically inserting the pea seeds and guesstimating the depth space apart. Peas are kind, so they've germinated anyway.

Caring for the plant: Most of my plant care has just involved keeping the pea plants well-watered, but not so much they become water-logged. I also stake the runner-type plants.



My research on diseases and pests that could plague pea crops was a bit disturbing though. I would definitely have been a bit intimidated if I'd known at the beginning that peas are popular with aphids, pea weevils, thrips and pea moth, fusarium wilt, which turns the plants yellow, then brown and causes them to shrivel and die, and root rot fungi which happens if your peas are water-soaked for a while. Then there's mildew... By then I was thinking, "Good Lord! It's a wonder newbie gardeners still attempt growing peas!"

Still, don't be discouraged too much by the literature because adequate crop rotation, keeping your crops watered but not water-logged and if need be, growing your crop under an insect-proof mesh, helps you avoid  most of the problems. But I did decide that I was going to speak to someone more technically savvy about the diseases, because surely I'll run out of luck sooner or later :)

Harvesting:  Pea pod are ready to harvest when they look well-filled, but to be honest, I usually start munching on the peas when the pods start growing bigger while I'm in the garden.  All in the name of testing to see if they're ready, of course.


The great thing is that they'll keep fruiting as you keep picking them, so you can have numerous harvests from the same plants. They stop producing flowers or pods if you stop picking them or wait too long to pick the batch though.

Serving suggestions: Freshly picked peas are soft and sweet and don't really need cooking.  I just put a dishful of pods on the table and the family shell  and snack on them throughout the day.

I also love throwing a bunch of them into a stew maybe two minutes before I take it off the stove. They bring in a sweet fresh taste to a dish and they also add some colour.

I also mix fresh peas with mashed potatoes (after mashing) and with my potato salads. Once the peas grow a bit solid/tougher, they start  being boiled with soups. Or I cook them quickly with carrots, add a bit of butter/margarine, fresh basil, salt and pepper/paprika/cayenne pepper depending on the flavour I'm after, and I have one more dish for my table.

14 comments:

  1. In India we make a curry dish with potatoes, peas and some ground masala paste of onions, tomatoes and ginger. I love this soupy dish, especially when it is freshly served with hot chapatis :)

    Beauty Interprets, Expresses, Manifests the Eternal

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    1. It sounds delicious. We love curries in this house, though most of the time I have to content myself with the lowkey dishes so that everyone can eat. But there was this place in Johannesburg where I used to buy a 2 litre container of curry. It looked like a hole in a wall really, but then I dont even think they were a proper sit-down restaurant. Just some Auntie and her daughters who cooked lots of curries and rice etc for Indian families where maybe the wife worked long hours, and you could just go there, get containers full of what you need and serve your family at home. Now that was proper curry. I miss it :)

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  2. Looks like Peas are low maintenance plants. When do you expect them to grow up ?
    As Beloo mentioned, we do use this in our vegetables..Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Hey Jayanta

      I'll be able to start harvesting peas in June.

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  3. Wow - you give a lot of good information. I love planting and growing. I loved your take. Hope to read more. Good luck with the A-Z!

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    1. Great to meet Scott. Thank you for coming by and that you got something useful out of the post. See you later at your "house"

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  4. We were just talking about peas the other day, and I was telling the kids how we grew them and I loved picking them fresh and eating them while playing in the yard. I wish I could pass that on to my kids. Perhaps at our new house we'll try it. I wonder if they do well in Florida...

    True Heroes from A to Z

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    1. It would be so nice if your kids could have a similar experience, Crystal. I suspect peas would do well in Florida. Another A-Z blogger mentioned that the climate I describe for my region sounds like Florida climate. Lots of sun and heat, lots of rain in summer through Autumn, mild winters?

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    2. Yup. Most plants can't survive the excess of rain though. It's actually pretty limiting.

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  5. My mom adds peas in everything - egg curry, maggi, Stuffed roti.. and I find it yumm when she makes scrambled eggs with peas for me. Nice post.

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  6. I always plant peas to enrich the soil while feeding us! I just transplanted my snow peas- great advice and I so enjoy your blog!!

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  7. I'm a novice gardener who adores peas!! This sounds pretty easy, and I have a nice big empty space awaiting something pretty or nutritious. So I believe I'll try them. Thank you for all the good info. Mary at Variety, the Spice of Life

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  8. I often forget about peas when it comes to gardening. I'm pole-bean obsessed, partly because I love green beans and also because they're so easy to grow. But sweet, fresh peas off the vine? That is a rare and heavenly treat.

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  9. Peas are one of my favorite veggies. All different types of 'em. I'm always too late to grow peas, and they would be a perfect crop to put in during winter since our ground is clay, too.
    The View from the Top of the Ladder

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