Great info. Nothing beats eating peas fresh from the garden. Mine don't make it inside either as I eat them out in the garden as I pick.

Snap peas and cherry tomatoes are both short-lived. Somehow they evaporate before they reach the kitchen.

I think it tickles some instinct that we carry forward from being hunter-gatherers.

"Pick - Eat - GOOD!"

Good article, Rick! I am so thinking about growing peas right now, the article was timely. I guess I should get adventurous and try some new varieties too.

I have had really good luck starting them indoors before setting out. I cut paper towel rolls into short lengths and start the peas in those. Then after they sprout, I can just plant the whole thing. For some reason, I get much better germination rates that way. Every single time I've tried to direct sow them, I only get about 50% germination.

Woofie, my outdoor germination rate varies from 3% to 30% in early spring, and 10% to 75% in late spring. (But sometimes I did not even pre-soak, so My Bad.)

(Fortunately my summers are so mild that peas seem quite happy through June or even some of July. Starting spring peas "late" was the only way I could get many to emerge. )

I did cover the RB for a few weeks before sowing to keep the rain off, trying to minimize the "wet-cold-clay rots peas" effect. However, despite being raised and covered, the soil is wetter than "moist" until, oh, April or May.

I love the idea of "pea tape"!

Someone else had suggested sprouting on paper towels, but watching them like a hawk and whipping each pea into the ground within twelve hours of its root tip first emerging! I guess we do love our peas.

Arlene,

What are your favorite varieties in GA? Do you like some for yourself, and others for market?

My favorite snap pea is Super Sugar Snap - most productive and tasted as good as Sugar Snap grown side-by-side one year.

So far my favorite snow pea is Oregon Sugar Pod II, but that was bred just for the PNW. (And I like them big and lumpy, not flat and delicate. I'm a pea gourmand, not a pea gourmet.)

I am also going to try and start some in paper pots because, like woofie's rolls, you plant the whole thing. DH usually starts rolling about this time of year and shoots to make about 100 paper pots a day. I use A LOT of paper pots! Love being able to just plant the whole thing.

Larger seeds like peas, beans and corn are ideal for starting in the pots. I'll use for a lot of annuals like lobelia, not to seed in, but to pot up. It has to be for plants that either grow a bit slower or that aren't as sensitive to being root bound, as usually I am slow to get them planted outside!

Cross posted!

I only have the dwarf Gray and Oregon giant right now. I like them both but had poor germination on the Oregon Giants. I've had the best germination and growth down here with the Dwarf gray (of the varieties I have tried, which aren't many). I will be trying some other varieties that Farmerdill grows since he is in GA as well.

I've only ever had enough to sell at market a few times and they are gone as fast as you can put them on the table! So I need to find some more productive varieties for this area and plant more. My other problem is, no one seems to want to pick them!

I've also started peas in those 72 cell flats. When it's time to plant them out, I just slide a table knife down the side of the cell to ease them out. Hey, it's food, right? Gonna eat them, right? Makes perfect sense to raid the kitchen for tools.

Arlene, how many pea seeds per pot do you grow? Seems like one would have to put a whole bunch into each little pot.

I have a lot of pea seed that I can use this spring. A snow pea variety, a shelling variety that is new to me and I have many different snap pea types.

>> Makes perfect sense to raid the kitchen for tools

Yup. For pricking out seedlings, I have some shrimp forks (cocktail forks?) with three prongs. I bend the middle prong down and then back striaght so that it forms a triangle with the other two prongs. That lets me surround a seedling's roots and lift it out without dropping it.

But too often I don;t pot up until the cell is very rootbound and the seedling is suffering.

>> usually I am slow to get them planted outside!

Me, too! That's why I long for some kind of cold frame, so I could move trays out of my bedroom to somewhere they can get natural light. I only have one shelf in my bedroom, and the lights are kind of jury-rigged.

>> Larger seeds like peas, beans and corn are ideal for starting in the pots.

What do you use to hold the paper pots until planting out? Some kind of plastic tray? The only cheap thing I've found for that purpose are the free cardboard trays from Home Depot, lined with plastic from heavy trash bags.

Rita, if I use paper pots for peas I only plant one pea per pot. The paper pots are wrapped around a small soup can so they aren't big enough for more than one seed. That way you plant each seedling exactly where you want it. Yes, it takes a lot of paper pots, but you could be rolling them as you watch TV!

Rick, anything solid (no holes) is game, i.e. Styrofoam trays that come under meat and fruit, plastic tray lunchmeat comes in, etc. i had the opportunity to get some trays used (I think) for feeding chickens at an auction once. They're great except a little brittle so I have broken the edges on several. This year I am finally ordering some heavy plastic trays. Oh, I have also used old cookie sheets that have a lip, sheet cake pans, mud trays, anything I can set them in and water the bottom. You have to make sure not to let them dry out because the newspaper will wick the moisture away from the plants if you do.

Oh, my mother one time got some old cafeteria trays! They are perfect!

Okay, thanks. I think I will stick to my own method of planting peas in big pots outside where I plant a lot of seed.

Yes, if you're planting in a pot the paper pots really wouldn't be helpful.

I find this way of planting in pots works better for me than planting in ground. I discovered this method afew years ago and have been moving more and more towards planting all my peas in pots.

My very first Garden Idea that I ever wrote and submitted is the one about the growing peas in big pots method. While I have had a lot of Gardening Ideas published since then, this one hasn't been approved. I hope at some time in the future it might be.

I'd love to see that idea, Rita! I like the idea of growing peas in big pots, as I do a lot of my gardening in pots and raised beds.

It is sitting in my Submitted To Publishers section. And there it sits.