Seems like a long way out right about now. Hopefully it will go by quickly.

If you have trouble with shelling peas suffering in warm spring weather, try Droughtproof Wando. I found their flavor to be good (maybe not the best ever, but plenty sweet to eat straight off the plant), and they were the only variety that would produce reliably for me on the Virginia coast, where spring sometimes forgot to happen and summer came on fast.

I never had much luck with snow peas, just not enough time between the freezing and too-hot seasons for them. Among snap peas, Sugar Snap was a winner, but I never tried Super Sugar Snap.

Thing with peas, no matter which type one grows, you need a lot of plants to get good production. But peas are my very favorite cold season veggie.

I have plenty of pea seeds left over from last year so am all set for spring planting.

Bit bit, have you tried to grow peas in the fall? If spring is short or tricky, sometimes fall can be easier for cool weather crops.

If they don't want to germinate in hot soil, like lettuce, try indoors or under shade.

You know, I have never had any problems with fall crop of peas not wanting to germinate, no matter how hot it was outside. They seem to like it and germinate quickly. It is just that peas don't want to grow during the hot season but sprouting is no problem.

Ahhhh!

The one time I tried a fall snow & snap crop I did see good germination, but then slow growth. I thought I started too late, but maybe I started too early!

I did try them in the fall a couple times, but also didn't have a long enough window there, it seemed. They'd wait until it cooled down to start growing even after they germinated. I don't think our winters were very cold at all, but they'd stall out and not set flowers/fruit, so maybe day length was a problem. Spring was hit-or-miss, but I always did best with Sugar Snap and Wando, which I think are just more heat tolerant than other varieties (drought was never a problem for me, so I can't account for that part of the name).

I just moved a few zones north, which means learning this all over again. I expect a long, cool spring here in Michigan, so I might have better luck with peas overall than I did in VA. I have a lot of seeds of those two varieties that I saved, so they'll be the first ones I try. I'll be very space-limited here, but I think I can get a few plants in, because there's nothing like garden-fresh peas!

Yes, definitely try peas again now that you are in a new location. Peas fresh out of the garden just taste so good!

Bit bit said:
>> They'd wait until it cooled down to start growing even after they germinated. I don't think our winters were very cold at all, but they'd stall out and not set flowers/fruit, so maybe day length was a problem.

Maybe that was the problem. They were still waiting for weather to be cold enough when a windstorm blew them off their strings, and then an early frost hit, then a hard frost. THEN the average days cooled down enough to be congenial to peas.

I am probably still going to feel like a gardening beginner when I have a long, gray beard.

Same thing for my fall peas here in GA. Didn't work. But, I will try again, this time planting a bit sooner.

I've read many times about Chinese cabbage preferring shortening day lengths and dropping temperatures, hence easiest as a fall crop.

For a Fall pea crop, Johnnies says to pick a powdery mildew resistant variety, and sow two months before frost. For me, that would be around mid-August to mid December.

BTW, I've read about a practice they have in England, that sounded cute. I guess some gardeners really want very early peas in England!

Companies would start up crops of spring peas, extra-early, in GUTTERS laid on the ground, under cover, maybe in heated greenhouses. The peas would sprout and grow to some short height under cover (and they must have hardened them off, too).

That let them start the peas much earlier than anyone else.

People would contract during the winter for so many 5 or 10 foot "gutters" of pea seedlings.

Then, around the time other people were direct sowing, they would load the seedling-gutters into a truck and drive them around to the customers' prepared beds. Each customer would have hoed or shoveled out a trench of the right length, just deep and wide enough to hold the gutters.

They would drop one end of a gutter into one end of the trench. Apparently the ends of the gutters were removable.

Then they would push on the other end of the soil in the gutter while bouncing the gutter a little and dragging back on the gutter. They would push the soil and peas out into the trench kind of like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube.

Once a foot or so of pea seedlings was resting in the soil, they could pull the rest of the gutter right out from under the peas, like whipping a tablecloth off a table without disturbing the plates and silverware.

Or so I read!

Also, they call "gutters" "guttering"

around here it is a gutter if it is ON the house. If it is the product itself being talked about it is called guttering.

That is a very neat idea!

@Dave
I can't find the thread you had about your greenhouse, but though this gutter idea might give you a brainstorm...

Oh my, I am so going to do that this spring!!!

Frillylilly, is this the thread?

The thread "Harbor Freight Greenhouse projects" in Greenhouses forum

Arlene, you might run a knife between the soil and the guttering just before you extrude them.
Maybe wax it or spray vegetable oil or wipe mineral oil before filling with soil?

I was thinking that until I really learned how, I would divide whatever length I used in half, with a cardboard or plastic divider, so I could push half the soil out the right end, and half out the left end.

I wonder how much weight they can support, or how many feet filled with damp soil?

I'm pretty sure that 1-2 people can carry a 5-foot length of guttering, but how many hands does it take to carry 10 feet of guttering filled with soil?

I'm not sure how deep it had to be, or how tolerant pea seedlings are of being "gutter-bound"

I did some Goggling and found one new article and also the one that originally got me thinking about this.

I liked the idea about cutting and pushing 18" sections at a time. I might try pre-dividing my guttering every 18" with plastic film so I don't need to cut roots.

Or maybe run some lengths of plastic film under the soil every 2-3 feet so I could pull up on the film to loosen the soil from the guttering.

And right at this instant, I'm thinking "why leave the guttering longer than is easy for one person to carry? Ease of watering? Why not cut the 10' lengths into three lengths of 3'4" or four lengths of 2'6"?

The assembly-line-from-truck-bed with three workers might go faster with 10' lengths, but I'm starting to think that, for myself, "cheap, long narrow planters with open ends" might be just the ticket.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gar...

>> standing at a table, you can sow carefully and space evenly. ... . Because I can do the thinning with the plants still in the gutters, it saves kneeling down or bending.

>> They germinated quickly and consistently in the warmth of my polytunnel and were transplanted outside without a hiccup. We were eating sugar snaps six weeks ahead of any previous year.

>> you will need two people, one at either end. ... slide the seedlings from the guttering into the U-shaped trench, pushing lengths about 45cm (18in) long at a time . Slide one section in, then push the next forward to the mouth of the pipe, and so on.

http://www.nwedible.com/2011/0...

This author cuts the 10 foot, $7 guttering into 4 foot lengths and one 2-foot length, to fit her seed-starting space. No drainage holes, just limited watering! Push them into the garden three weeks after sowing. Tilted and jerked the whole 4-foot length, but the pea roots resisted.

Okay, Rick, you may have a problem with not over watering if there are no drainage holes!

How about just newspaper since it would break down and you wouldn't have to worry about putting it right into the ditch?

I have also seen PVC pipe cut in half lengthwise and fastened to some sort of vertical post WITH DRAIN HOLES and planted in. It was about three pieces attached to the verticals so it looked like a live fence. I wonder if the peas could be kept in the PVC pipe or if the roots would need more space?

Anyway, I am doing this! I am pretty sure we have a long piece of guttering sitting behind the shed!

I've noticed that many of the pea varieties I've grown will grow just fine when it gets hot in the summer if they get plenty of water...they just don't set any flowers.

>> Okay, Rick, you may have a problem with not over watering if there are no drainage holes!

Totally true, because I just plain have an over-watering problem. With everything.

When i worked in a chemical plant, the other operators teased me because I was always "watering the concrete". Actually, i was only washing toxic dust off the floor, because nothing ever sprouted there no matter HOW much I watered!

I was thinking about short lengths, and tilting them 5-10 degrees so that they drained out the edges. I agree with the author of one link: I don;t want the pea seedlings to grow out through holes and then be amputated when I extrude the "seedbed".

I got a piece of guttering! I think I'll line with newspaper first, then plant. I'll keep you posted!