Dig For Your Dinner – Growing Peas and Sweet Pea Flowers from Seed

It’s time to get your peas planted!!!

Peas and Sweet Pea flowers are both hardy enough that you can directly sow them outside as soon as the soil can be worked.  Peas are about the easiest thing ever to grow.  They can tolerate the cold.  They have a fairly short growing season, so you can enjoy them early, and then use the space to plant later warm crops in their spot.  Best of all, they add nitrogen to the soil while they grow, so they will enrich your soil for whatever you plan to put there next.

Sweet pea flowers add a pop of early spring color to borders–and they smell unbelievable.  While they like to have “their heads” in the sun, their roots can be shaded–which makes them ideal for the cooler weather.

How to Grow Peas

Peas do best in temperatures under 70 degrees.  Most seed packets recommend soaking seeds for 12-24 hours before planting.  I’ve heard mixed opinions of whether that is necessary…I do go ahead and soak them, and I’ve never had negative results because of it.  Just toss them in a bowl with water, let them sit for the recommended time indicated on your seed packet, and then drain them and you are ready to plant.

To plant them, choose a sunny location.  If you are growing snow peas or sugar snap peas you will need a trellis for them to climb.  Follow general planting guides on the back of your seed packet {different pea varieties have slightly different directions}, but in general, plant them about 1″ deep and 2″ apart.  You won’t need to thin them–which is nice, because you can pack them in nice and tight and still get great yields.

When Are Peas Ready to Harvest?

Peas are ready to harvest when they’ve started to plump.  Don’t let them get too plump, or their flavor will be affected.  Harvest frequently to encourage growth.  To harvest them, just clip or snap them off of the vine right at the top the pea.

How to Grow Sweet Pea Flowers

To plant sweet pea seeds, choose a sunny location {though, as I mentioned their roots can be shaded, which makes them great in garden bed borders, where shrugs might block some of the sunlight}.  Plant the seeds as soon as the soil can be worked {usually about 6 weeks before the last frost}.  Plant seeds 1/2″-1″ deep, and space them according to the directions on the seed packets {different varieties have different requirements}.  If you want a faster germination, you can nick the seeds and soak them in water for a couple of hours.  If you want them to get the most out of their blooming season, you may want to consider a quality organic fertilizer once or twice during the growing season.

 

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