Planting Peas

It's almost Pea Planting Time!  In the past I've planted peas as early as March 15th.  That's not happening this year.  We recently had a few inches of snow and that is still on the ground.  It is supposed to be a beautiful Spring week so there would undoubtably be opportunity to do it this week but I'm in no hurry.  They say to sow peas as early as the soil can be worked.  This is basically winter sowing.  The seeds will remain dormant and then when conditions are right they are ready, willing and able to sprout.  Frost and snow doesn't bother them.  The only problem you would have to look out for is the seeds rotting if you have really wet conditions.  So let's talk about planting peas.

Some crops like to be a little crowded.  They are happier that way.  Like pepper plants liking to be able to touch each other, Pea plants like to intertwine.  If you give them more space, they will still grow but they won't thrive.  And you will be wasting space.

Generally people try to follow the spacing recommendations on the seed packet.  Here are the spacing requirements of three different peas that I have grown from three different suppliers:

Johnny's Seeds Penelope Peas:  In well-drained soil, sow 1-1 1/2" apart in a 3" band (25 seeds/ft.), 1/2-1" deep. Do not thin

Gurney's Seeds Maestro Peas: 2 - 3 inches between plants, 18 - 24 inches between rows.

Burpee Seeds Garden Sweet:  

• Sow 2 inches apart in double rows spaced 6 inches apart with 24 inches between each set of rows.

Confused yet?

I don't plant peas that way.  I pour them out in a big fat clumpy row.  Now my method did not originate from sage garden advice.  It didn't evolve from any special divine gardening inspiration.  It started with laziness.  And cold.  Traditional garden advice is to plant peas as soon as the soil can be worked.  It doesn't hinge on a specific date or soil temperature.  Unless you count planting on Good Friday which can fluctuate quite a bit.  Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.  That can happen in March or April.  I plant whenever I feel the urge from mid-March to the end of April.  I find that plantings of the same variety tend to catch up to each other based on growing conditions.  If you truly want to stagger harvest you are better off planting different varieties with varying maturity dates.

The one thing I can tell you helps a lot when planting peas is soaking the seeds over night.  But not necessarily for the reason you would think.  Many seeds need to be soaked to soften the hard outer shell.  Nasturtium comes to mind.  Those seeds are HARD and many people also nick the shell with a knife to help the plant break through.  But with garden peas the soaking is all about buoyancy. 

When I first began gardening, I would plant dry pea seeds.  When you are planting early you aren't expecting the seeds to germinate immediately.  They can cope with bad weather and will wait for the perfect growing conditions to come along.  Primarily a good rain.  But you know what happens when you plant dry peas seeds and then get a good rain?  They soak up that water, become buoyant and then they float to the surface of your soil.  And there you are out on your knees poking seeds back down where they belong.  It didn't matter how well I thought I had covered them.  If I soaked them first that didn't happen.  Whatever depth I buried them at they stayed because there was no change in the seed buoyancy.  So now I soak every batch.

I used to plant peas by the packet, but these days I buy at least a half pound bag (plus any packets of new varieties) and divide that up by ounces.  In 2021 I planted about 4 ounces (dry weight) per 11 foot row. 

So anyway, back to my laziness.  It is also because the day I first plant peas in the spring, during the time the soil can be first be worked... it's COLD.  And I'm in a HURRY.   It may be windy.  There may be snowflakes landing in my ears.  I wait for months for the first day I can get out in the garden and plant.  I carefully prepare my bed and then I lose patience.  I just dump those babies out and run back in the house!

I've had great success with the dump and run method for years.  But last year I began to feel guilty about it.  I decided that for at least one planting I should follow the instructions to see if I had been totally wrong all this time.  In 2021 I planted only Penelope Pea.  This is the first time ever that I had planted only one variety of pea.  I almost always follow my rule of planting more than one variety in more than one place at more than one time.  That way you don't get total crop failure.  I still succession planted.  But I decided that since I was planting all of one variety, this would be a good year for another experiment and a good photo op for future.  Welcome to the future.  For the third succession, I followed the instructions.  Below the photo shows the row on the left covered up.  This row was half over flow of my second succession, and half the carefully placed seeds.  The open row on the right was soon to be sown with the carefully placed seeds.

As soon as the row is covered I place my supports.  You should always place supports as soon as you plant a crop because placing them later means you will be stabbing into established roots and possibly breaking down growing plants.

Below is an example of a "dump and run" row after a couple of weeks of growth.  The plants are coming in thick and lush.

Below is a photo of the initial results of the two methods.  The top left is again the over flow of my second succession, and half the carefully placed seeds.  The row on the right is the carefully spaced seeds per instructions.  You can see that the "dump and run" is clearly thicker because there are many more seeds per inch.  It is hard to tell at this point which will be more successful in the end.

You can see fairly quickly that this bed is not going to thrive over all.  For starters, there doesn't appear to be a lot of organic material left in this bed.  The soil appears poorer overall.  You remember that old wives tale that peas will grow in almost any kind of soil.  Some people take it one step further and claim that they "prefer poor soil".  Not true.  They may do better than most crops in the poor area of your garden, but they won't like it.  This bed has been amended right along with the rest,  and the year before it grew peas very well so in my scheme of things, it was resting with a crop with a low nitrogen demand.  Still, it wasn't the best soil.

You can see below how each of the succession plantings are looking.  They are planted about two weeks apart.  The first plantings did fine.  The carefully placed planting produced but struggled.  The third over crowded planting did awesome.  In fact, by the time they were ready I had more than enough peas store and we were tired of peas.  I picked as much as we wanted from the overcrowded batch and whatever I missed was dried on the vine and saved for this year's seed.

Dried seeds for planting this year.

Bed #1 photo June 15th   
First and Second planting seeded 03/15 and 03/29

Bed #2 June 15th
Second and Third (spaced seeds) planting seeded 03/29 and 04/10

Bed #3 June 15th
Third (leftovers from placed) and Fourth planting seeded 04/10 and 04/17

So this is my advice on the planting of peas:

• Start Early
• Give them nutrient rich soil
• Plant more than one variety
• Soak your seeds
• Plant them thickly
• Support them well
• Harvest and Enjoy

THE END product