Growing peas - daft idea!

[veggiechicken]

Bear with me!!

Peas come in all sorts - 1st early, 2nd early and maincrop. They also come in various heights from dwarf to 10' +
Some need supports - netting etc, others are self supporting but like twiggy things to hang on to.

My daft idea is.............to multi sow a mixture of peas into each module - a dwarf, medium height and tall pea and plant them out together. The dwarf ones should crop first, then the medium ones and later the tall ones.
They'd all use the same supports, or each other to grow and it would maximise space. No need for lots of pea sticks - all in together.

I imagine a bit of a tangle but pruning out the dwarf ones as they finish should help,

What do you think? Would it work?
What about beans???

[Small pumpkin]

Nuts

But let us know how it goes

[veggiechicken]

Don't think it would work with Nuts, SP!

[Penellype]

It should work. I sow 5 peas per 9cm square pot and plant them out - about 10 pots to the metre. I don't see any reason at all why you shouldn't sow a mixture of seeds in each pot, although you would probably need a lot more than 10 pots at a time if you did it this way as there would be fewer peas ready per metre at any one time.

[Jungle Jane]

Beans might need more space but I'm no bean root system expert

[Thelma Sanders]

I'd sow tall ones and after a couple of weeks the mid-height ones and then later still the small ones - otherwise I think the tall ones may strangle the shorter ones, before the littlies have had a chance to do anything?

[Potstubsdustbins]

Some people just luv a challenge.............................

And I have no idea if it will work so as you would say VC only one way to find out good luck!!!!

[Bren In Pots]

VC do a small trial in a test bed then you're happy with the result sow more next time.
If it works we'll join in next time, maybe

[vixylix]

Sounds like an interesting challenge... my only input is that I think it will be difficult to prune out the finished dwarfs while the rest are still going - they'll be all tangled together

[Nicos]

Nice idea...go for it!

[veggiechicken]

Sounds like an interesting challenge... my only input is that I think it will be difficult to prune out the finished dwarfs while the rest are still going - they'll be all tangled together

Thinking about it, don't think it will matter because the tangle will be low down and the croppers will be higher up. That's the theory anyway.
Planning a mangetout trio as we speak

[Bren In Pots]

I grow telephone peas and rarely get much of a crop in the first couple of feet, so I can see it working.

[veggiechicken]

The trio of Mangetout turned into a 6 pack
I'm combining 2 of my crazy ideas - sowing multiple seeds in a cotton wool nest!



Each nest has 6 different pea "eggs". The nests have been soaked and the pea eggs wrapped in a cotton wool cocoon. They can stay in the house overnight, tomorrow they'll be in the GH under a lid to keep the meeces away.

For the record, these are the varieties with expected heights. (I don't expect every seed to germinate in each nest so I've put some coloured MTs in so that I can tell which ones grow best). Ever the optimist

Bijou - 7'
Golden Sweet (yellow) - 7'
Carouby de Mausanne 5-6'
Shiraz (purple) - 3-4'
Sweet Horizon - 3'
Norli - 2'

This is Bijou in the GH today so I'll stick a few shorter MT seeds in with them and see what happens.

[Snadger]

What are you trying to achieve VC? Will it be on the total weight of peas over a given area , or will it be that you have a succession of small amounts of each pea?

You would need a control plot with each pea grown seperately to guage whether it was a success weight wise.
.
Or is the reason that you are short of space or don't want lots and lots of peas?


No icons added cos they would all be like this

[veggiechicken]

I just want to do it because its daft!
If (big If" ) it works and I get to pick peas over an extended period without having to pull out plants to make space for more, I'll be happy.
If it doesn't work, I haven't really lost anything - I have loads of pea seeds that I'll never sow conventionally.