How do you grow peas

[briggsy2011]

Last year i grew my peas in a small trench. This year due to space (i want a polytunnel) i will be growing them in large trugs with canes on my patio. Hopefully should work. x

[Potstubsdustbins]

I do it like that too, but I chit the peas first (it's said to repel mice, don't know if it's true). I grow the peas up chicken wire, as I find the green netting too flimsy and tangley

Took your advice last year and after 2 years of losing peas to the mice never lost one last year.

Thankyou Colin

[Potstubsdustbins]

Briggsy,

I grow mine similar to your proposal they only need about 8" depth of compost.


Colin

[Scarlet]

Well, I put my chitted peas in the house left them in the greenhouse overnigh and they have all been pulled up!!! I'm not having any luck so far - all my broad beans have gone too! To add insult to injury I stupidly left all my saved broadbean seeds up in the geenhouse and theyv'e gone as well I've just set some snapper traps

[Two_Sheds]

i will be growing them in large trugs with canes

Peas won't climb up canes, instead they are twiners: wrapping their little tendrils around something like twigs, string, mesh or netting

[solway cropper]

My earliest crop is grown in containers in the greenhouse. Rich compost and peas two or three inches apart with sticks for support.

On the plot this year I'm using plastic coated wire netting supported on posts with a row of peas each side

[zazen999]

In a block, with a cane at each corner and twine at 1 foot intervals to keep them contained.

[Poolcue]

This year I have cloched an area to warm up the soil.The peas are going into cut down toilet rolls,once up a while in an unheated greenhouse and then planted out in the warmed soil with pea sticks for them to clamber up.

[Bigmallly]

Blimey, how many root trainers do you own? I tend to sow about 50 odd peas every few weeks so would need a lot

I've only got 16 books, that's 64 cells in total.

[donnakebab]

I've never grown peas on my lottie before but am going to do it this year. Do you have to protect them from pigeons and the like, as you do for brassicas?

[SarzWix]

Sparrows were a major problem for my peas last year, so I'm going to have to think of a way to keep them off. They stripped most of the plants, and then moved on to the lettuce which were planted next to them

[Currysniffa]

I had a go at growing peas for the first time last year, took some advice from a old chap 3 plots down from mine, I dug a flat bottomed trench about about a foot and a half wide six" deep 15 foot long, I sowed about a pound of peas in the trench, I didn't worry about spacing them out, I saved a few handfuls and sowed them at home so when the peas came up I could fill in any gaps, I put 5 foot wooden posts each end of the trench and ran some of that plastic fencing you see on building sites down one side of the trench put sticks in the middle and the ran the plastic fencing back up the other side of said trench.

I got just under 9 pound of peas for the freezer plus some that didn't make it that far

In this photo pea row is bottom left


in this photo pea row is at the back left of the shot

I'm going to double up this year by sowing 2 rows, I have more land (half plots now full plot) and more plastic fencing, I'm also going try and grow some heirloom peas (from a seed circle) at home and plant them my other lottie (half plot) I don't have many so I'll sow them at home and plant them out as zaz said in blocks, these I will grow just to bulk up so eventually I can grow 15 foot rows of them for the freezer and save some for the next year..

[Two_Sheds]

In a block, with a cane at each corner and twine at 1 foot intervals to keep them contained.

How do you keep the twine taut? As hard as I pull it, it always goes baggy & saggy after a few days/weeks

Do you have to protect them from pigeons ...?

Not pigeons, but sparrows as Sarz says. Sparrows will also attack beet leaves in early spring.
Then later in the summer they might need to be netted against pea moth

[zazen999]

How do you keep the twine taut? As hard as I pull it, it always goes baggy & saggy after a few days/weeks

Ah - engineering. Put the canes in deep like this \ / and when you tie each corner, bend the cane in slightly as you tie it. They will try to bend back to their natural straightness and keep the twine taught for you. Make sure the start and end tie in is really really firm and not able to slip. And tie the others just above a natural bump and tie it tight and it shouldn't slip down.

On your sandy soil, you may have to push them in quite deep to get the tension to stick. On my clay it's not a problem.

I've done the same with tall peas, but it's harder to net them. I can just chuck a net over the whole lot like this.

[Two_Sheds]

Ah, I'd done everything else except the correct angle on the canes. Cheers m'dear