Hi all. I just got 3 six packs of Oregon sugar pod pea. I tried growing peas from seed last year, I think I might have gotten 5 pods.... So, we got the plants this time. The information tab on the peas says they are 24-30 inch dwarf vines, will they need support at all? And what type of support should I look for? Could I use those small circular tomato cages for these? I've seen pea and bean towers in similar shapes, though larger and taller, and much more expensive... oh...I just looked up this pea, I thought it was a regular green pea I guess it's a snow pea. Well then, I'll just have to go back to the garden center to look for a garden green pea type, any suggestions on a good reliable one if I can find it? They were sold out of other peas, this was the only one...maybe I'll check out a different place.
Sugar pods are good. You can eat the peas and the pod. Even dwarfs need some sort of support. Tomato cages could work. I use chicken wire, or 2 stakes with string strung across so theres a few layers for them to climb.
I love the sugar pods. I haven't had too much success with string between stakes. Overtime the string seems to expand and droop with the weight of the peas and exposure. The best peas I ever had were done up a metal caging. Not tomato caging, but they were metal and had about 6" squares in them. I had peas grow almost 5' high that year. They just went up and up. I usually plant about 30'-40' of peas in a couple of rows, so I am trying to figure out some easy and inexpensive way to put a support system that is more solid than stakes and string as they seem to do better when I do that.
Hello melissa, Well first off, if you have dwarf vines you can just let them grow without support and throw a net over them and they will do just fine. The alternative is to sink a few stakes (that come to about mid-thigh)in the ground along their rows and span a length of galvanized chicken wire the full length. On our complex the folks who grow the dwarfs are split about 75-25% in favour of the knee-high supports. An important thing with peas is to cover them with netting to keep the birds off. You asked for recommendations for taller green pea types. I can suggest two types: Purple-podded Capucijner "Blauwschokker" and the "Ne Plus Ultra". You will need to build a rack for these and some people prepare the ground for them in a special way. I have done that and I have just planted them in plain ground and had succes both ways, but with "special preparation" that were slightly more productive. Whether it's worth the extra trouble or not, is a personal choice. Peas like a sunny place with a well-dug soil and with lots of organic material (if you want to go the extra mile). I have found that they like...or should I say require quitre a bit of water, especially during dry spells. You have mentioned that you have plants for the dwarf variety, and you could do the same for the taller types, or sow them in the soil directly under the rack. You ouight to sow them sometime between March and June...you could sow them in a staggered fashion to have peas continuously for a couple of months. I have included some pics below: This is an example of the sort of rack that I was speaking of. Here it is full, so that you can see how tall it needs to be (about 6 ft.) A harvest shot. And a close-up of the peas themselves. Don't they look delicious?
Those look delicious, I'm so jealous. The rabbits ate all mine down. So I'll try again in the spring. Oh I use hog panel cuz I usually grow the ones that don't get so tall.
Hi Trudy, What sort of material is "hog panel"? I'm always on the lookout to discover something new. When I erected this rack, the rabbits could still get into this new garden plot, so I pit up a band of wire (± shin high) and closed it at the top to keep the rabbits away. Once the peas grew tall enough to come out the top, I left the wire fencing in place(just in case) and let thjem grow on up the rack. That low fencing panel has holes much smaller than chicken wire (little squares) and the wire was covered with green plastic. I had to protect my runner beans the same way.
Sjoerd: I like your idea for the peas. We also needed to do something differant this year and I think we will give that a try. The wire fencing gives the peas something good to climb on. We did do something similiar to this last year only on cucumbers & tomatoes, worked out good. Thanks for the idea for the peas.
I love sweet peas .My mom always planted them in Dec.as she always said they are a cool weather plant.She alway put chicken wire up for them to run on .
Petunia, on another rack that I erected for a different sort of pea in the old garden I planted a raised-from-seed cucumber treated with EM at either end. As an experiment I dug a deep hole and then put in layers of manure, dirt, compost horse manure and compost mixed with bone meal...and on the other end, I just planted the cuke plant in the regular soil (no frils and thrills). I gave them both the same amount of water at the same time on the same days throughout the season, and you would not believe the difference in plant habitus and yield. The layered pit was the winner hands down at an eye-opening rate of 40-something to 8! I would have had way more than that except I cut off every side branch that formed so that the main stem would grow longer. I didn't need any more cukes obviously. I was astounded at the yield. I don't know if I shall ever grow cucumbers again, but if I do, I know how to plant them now. hahahaha.
