You too can grow huge crops of a healthy, flavorful,and fresh garden peas.

We call green peas, the converter, because we’ve seen more people turned on to gardening by fresh peas than any other vegetable.  Freshly picked, green peas have a sweetness and a flavor that bears no resemblance to what is sold fresh, frozen, or canned in any store.  Our own-year-old frozen peas are better than servings we’ve had in any restaurant.  The reason for this is because they were frozen within a half-hour of being harvested.

The soil likes peas also. A legume, the plant takes free nitrogen from the air and with the aid of a naturally occurring soil bacteria fixes it into a form plants can use as food.  And on top of that, the vines and shelled out pods are used to mulch following generations of plants.  What a vegetable!  Superb food, nitrogen fixer, mulch, and green manure all in one.

Over the years we’ve tried most every kind of pea variety available.  The new early varieties are inferior in quality to the older varieties, and they are earlier by only a few days.  We don’t like the new dwarf kinds either, they don’t produce much, and picking them means getting down on your knees and scrambling around in a lot of vines.

To grow peas, I use a double row that are spaced about a foot apart.  The furloughs are a couple of inches deep, and each is a good yard from the next.  We scatter an equal mixture of Lincoln, Tall Telephone, and Aldermen seed.  These are all tall growing vigorous varieties, and they produce  better given a bit more planting space.

After planting the peas, you must build a support system.  We like to use 5 foot high chicken wire.  We placed the support polls that hold the chicken wire about 5 feet apart from each other.  At the end of each row, guy wires are required.  These are similar to what you see on many tents.  Run a wire from the top of the pole to the ground and stake in place.  A minimum of two are required at each end of the chicken wire.

The peas germinate together and flower a week apart.  In 9 to 11 weeks from planting, the Lincoln turns out two good pickings of medium-sized pods and peas on vines that never get higher than 3 feet.  The Aldermen plants grow wildly, often putting out a foot or more of waving vine above the top of the wire.  The Lincoln vines are beginning to weather when the Aldermen comes on with huge crops that require daily picking for up to two to three weeks.  Both varieties are superb eating, but the tall variety gets starchy, if left on the vine too long.

Rotation is the key to Sweet pea success, and we never plant them on the same plot  twice within five years.  Follow these tips, and you too can grow huge crops of a healthy, flavorful, fresh garden peas.