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Vegetable Gardening

Shelling Pea Varieties

daylilyfanatic4

12 years ago

Can anyone give me the name and possible sources of some good shelling peas. I have had ok sucsess growing snow peas and sugar snap peas but in my opinion the flavor is lacking compared with shelling peas.

I've grown dakota peas before and I think the flavor is excellent.

My garden is fairly shady for a vegetable patch. I get 6 hours of sun before the leaves appear on the trees but by mid summer I gt only 5 hours of sun. For super early peas I can grow them on my deck in pots but they need to be finished by the first or second week of May to make room for my tomatoes and squash.

Here is my wishlist for the "perfect" variety. I konw that any single variety probably won't meet all of these requirments but maybe you guys can suggest several that wil work.

1. Flavor.

2. production

3. Early maturity to avoid hot weather

4. Heat tolerance

5. Cold Tolerance

6. Open pollinated if possible so I can save seeds

Thanks for your help!

Featured Answer

farmerdill

12 years ago

All peas are open pollinated so you can save seeds if you like.
Strike is quite good as is Dakota and Caseload. Not quite as early, larger plant but outstanding flavor Green Arrow. Not quite ar flavorful, but more cold tolerant Alaska , Willet Wonder. Wando has some heat tolerance, but is a later pea and not high on the tasty chart. Johnny's has about the best selection of peas available to home gardeners.
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Comments (7)

jolj
12 years ago
Yes, go to"Beans,Peas & Other Legumes".
They have threads on everything Legumes.

Here is a link that might be useful: beans
User
12 years ago
You didn't say if you prefer tall vines or short.

I grow a variety called Strike. I like it because it's extremely early, and the flavor is excellent, sweet. It will set a second crop if the weather allows. It isn't a big pea - only 6-7 seeds to a pod. Dwarf vines. I don't know if you can save the seeds.
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The EMT posts are 8 feet tall. There are two varieties of peas planted in the bed. Green Arrow shelling pea and Wando shelling pea. Both varieties grew to the same height. The package for Wando says 18 to 30 inches tall. A little variance in the height from the package. It was real aggravating because they were so tall they climbed up the trellis that I was saving for the cucumbers. The Green Arrow pea package says "plants reach only two feet tall.". I used home grown compost (mostly leaves & grass) as a fertilizer and even though they grew real tall they were also very prolific. Therefore, I do not think the height was a result of excess nitrogen. The same thing happened to my pink eye purple hull peas (Coronet). The package said "compact, 24 inch tall plants that don't need staking". Well they are 8 feet tall and hanging over the top of the trellis.
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daylilyfanatic4
Original Author
12 years ago
I never knew all peas were open pollinated. I always assumed that most were f1 hybrids. Good to know. I don't really care if the peas are tall or short. for the super cold tolerante varieties short is better so they fit inside my coldframe. Otherwise I have plenty of trellis space.

Those peas look amazing famer dill!
macky77
12 years ago
I've grown Dakota as well and they are wonderfully sweet!

Bolero is what I usually grow now; they hold really well if I can't pick every day and that's a big plus for me. Freezing quality is excellent, too. They fill better than Dakota did for me and the peas are just about as sweet.

This year I wanted to try something different. In my zone, the peas are just coming up, so I can't comment on Legacy wrt flavour, etc. just yet.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bolero garden peas
chaman
12 years ago
Refer to catalogs of Gurney and Park seeds.
susancol
12 years ago
I had good luck with Early Frosties - a bush pea bought from Fedco. Was not as impressed with the Alderman Telephone pole peas. Next year I'll need new seed and will look for some of the other varieties mentioned here.

Susan

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