Gardening – Growing your own: garden peas

CUSTOM has it that if you find a pea pod with nine or more peas in it, you can make a wish for whatever you heart desires. Now, with the unseasonal cold snap we experienced last weekend, I'm willing to bet quite a few early seed sowers would have wished for milder weather. Reports filtered in to me over the last few days of some over-enthusiastic gardeners who had their young seedlings totally blackened by that late frost. Amongst the casualties were cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, spring onion, and beetroot, both in the open ground and within unheated glasshouses or polytunnels. All I can say is keep the chin up, don't be downhearted, as it's early in the growing season, so you've plenty of time to set a new batch of seeds. Let peas be one of them, and I can assure you that with a little care you will have a bountiful harvest. Peas are usually sown from the middle of March onwards, when soil begins to become warm to the touch. If soils are still wet and cold, hold off for a while, as sowing in such situations can result in poor germination and fungal attack. A mid-March sowing of an early variety such as 'Kelvedon Wonder' or 'Early Onward' could mean you can begin picking from the middle of June onwards, whereas a mid-April sowing of Onward or Hurst Green Shaft could mean you can begin picking from mid-July onwards. Sowing at fortnightly intervals will provide you with a pea harvest spaced right throughout the summer. Sowing tips Peas grow best in a sunny spot but will tolerate partial shade, albeit with reduced cropping, so they are quite accommodating in that way. Avoid soil that holds water or dries out rapidly. Shelter is also beneficial especially when it comes to the plants supporting a heavy crop of pea pods. To sow, you must create a flat-bottomed drill two inches (five cm) deep. Lightly press your pea seeds into the base of this drill at seven to eight cm (three inch) spacings. After sowing, close the drill with soil, then water well and label. A helpful tip I've found is to sow a few extra pea seeds at the end of some rows to be used as transplants should gaps appear due to non germination of a seed or two. The distance between the pea drills should be at least one metre. An even wider spacing is preferable as it allows you room to get between the rows to harvest your crop. Support and care Unless you have opted for a dwarf pea variety such as 'Meteor' you will have to provide support as your plants get taller. Breezes and heavy rains easily break the brittle stalks of your pea plants, so I urge you to support them. Support must be in place before the seedlings reach eight cm (three inches) in height. Drive in a wooden stake at either end of your individual rows, with further stakes driven every 120cm (four ft) along the rows. The section of stake left above ground should match or exceed the expected height of the crop. Tautly fasten chicken wire or plastic netting of a similar height to these stakes, to allow the pea tendrils wrap, and your plants to climb. Bird attacks and parched soil are the two problems that frustrate first-time pea growers so it helps to be prepared for them. Pigeons, in particular, tend to pull up young seedlings root and all so some form of netting should be used during their first few weeks. I use fine netting draped across a few twigs and I find this keeps the birds at a safe distance. Water reserves must be adequate once the pea pods start to form or else they may end up empty, so hand water the plants to ensure the soil at the base of the plants is not parched at this time. My top tip to conserve soil moisture in a dry summer is to spread a one to two inch thick layer of grass clippings on the soil around the pea plants. Time from spring planting to harvest is between 12 and 16 weeks. Pods are ready for picking once they are almost full (peas almost touching), but before the peas within start to harden. Growing sugar-sweet peas like this is a fairly easy activity for the home gardener, so no garden should be without them this summer. Next week, broad beans and more. Until then, happy gardening and remember that a weed is just a plant in the wrong place.