Stream-lining pea planting
Soon after posting that our
soil was too cold for peas, I stuck the thermometer in
the ground again and got a reading of 39 degrees. Yes, that's
still one degree shy of their minimum germination temperature, but the
ten day forecast (with the exception of today) promises highs in the
fifties to sixties and lows above freezing, so I figured I could risk
it.
I've posted before about
how I make my pea
trellises.
These light-weight fence posts combined with the green
plastic trellis material are easy to put up and take
down and look quite elegant in the garden. I do most of the work
myself, but always need to ask Mark to pound in the fence posts.
I've only had two
problems with my pea plantings in recent years. I've learned not
to plant peas in the waterlogged soil of the back garden since they
tend to get root rot. And this year I'm also working harder to
keep all of the soil except for the row where the peas will come up
completely mulched. Last year, weeds grew amid the pea plants
before I pulled the mulch back into place, and when I tried to rip the
weeds out, I removed a few pea vines as well. Luckily, the
partially decomposed straw that mulched the beds over the winter is in
just the right state to sit politely in the middle of the bed without
blowing around and covering up emerging seedlings.
As a final note, if
you're a raw beginner, you might want to check out my posts about soaking
peas, giving extra
soaked peas to the chickens, why
we no longer grow shelling peas, and growing
peas for tendrils.
I'm looking forward to sugar snap peas in May!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Hi Anna - Great minds think like you! I'm putting up my trellises today. Here in mild-climate California, we put our peas in the ground around Halloween-time (as soon as the tomatoes come out), and they're about 4' tall by now. Unfortunately I got a late start last fall, so my peas are just ready to be strung up now.
We make our trellis out of PVC pipe and hang the white nylon netting from them. Not sure how your readers feel about the use of exposed PVC in the garden, though.
This year I experimented and planted flowering sweet peas in amongst the edible peas - hopefully will attract more pollinators and be pretty. Yes, I know sweet pea pods are not to be eaten, but they're also very different-looking from the edible pea pods, so I'm not worried.
Rena -- Planting peas in October --- crazy! I think it's an entirely different world gardening in areas like Texas and California. I can see how PVC pipes would make a good trellis, with connector pieces to hook them into a solid shape.
Tommy --- I think you might be talking about livestock panels? I think those could make a great trellis too! I do love the way you can roll this green plastic stuff up, though, and put it away for next year.
Dave --- I do just one row of peas on each side of the trellis, and only one trellis per bed.. I figure it's not that wasteful of space if I put the seeds pretty close together and they take over the whole trellis.
I've tried using more than two rows of legumes per bed, and just can't seem to make it work. Even bush beans and bush peas are just too hard to pick if you double up the rows! I do tend to choose the skinnier beds for them, though. I guess that's one good thing about our garden not being laid out with real precision.