I don't know about Southern Peas (are they different from Midwestern Peas???) but when I grew them I waited until they looked plumpish, then tasted the raw peas. If they were good and sweet, it was time to harvest. MMMMmmmmmm, raw peas...

Actually, I think you could save the drier ones to use in soups and they would still be good.

Kate

Welcome back, Ill!

Best time to pick them is after the peas form and before they get too hard. When you cook them you can throw in some very young pods unshelled, just snap them into one inch pieces like snap beans and cook them along with the shelled peas. That's the way my mom cooks them. Her mix is probably ninety percent shelled peas, ten percent very young unshelled, cooked all together. (She cooks them a long time--too long for my tastes--with a piece of bacon.)

I prune my yard longs, which are just another version of the southern pea, with no problems.

Enjoy the shelling! Glad to hear you all have made it back, and we enjoyed eating your vegetables.

Bill

The dried ones can be gathered and either re-planted or used as dried peas. Anything at any point earlier than tht can be used as shelled or snapped. I like a mix that is pretty heavy on the snap side. As much as 50% if I can get away with it. I cook them with ham, but bacon, fatback, or smoked ham hocks all are traditional. Salt rather liberally. Best served with fried fish, cheese grits, and cold sliced tomatoes.
Soak the dried peas overnight before cooking and deffinately use ham. Best served with rice.

Wash down with liberal quantities of iced tea.

thanks, guys -- perfect advice. mmmm.... fried fish and peas. i'm going bass fishing on thursday, before dawn -- if i catch anything (doubtful this time of year, but a guy can dream, right?), i can already imagine that perfect white flesh of black bass, breaded in cornmeal, fried in bacon grease, with a side of peas. only i think i'll wash it down with ale and bourbon. now THAT is breakfast!

i love all veg, but i have a special place in my heart for modest, peasant veg like Vigna unguiculata ()and collards and cabbage and okra) that other people turn their noses up at. what other plant grows in straight-up sand, off of irrigation, in full sun, and appears to thrive? and it's pretty, too! it's earned its place in my garden.

i picked a bucketfull of peas and have already started shucking them...

You can either let them dry on the pod for dried or pick them green and eat raw. So delicious.

Southern peas, raw? I can't say I've ever eaten them that way. English peas, yes, but not black eyes, or crowders or cream peas and the like.

hmmm... raw. slightly starchy, but sweet, not unpleasant. i won't wake up at night with any cravings, but they're not bad.

i hear you can scorch them in a skillet and grind them for coffee substitute... i'll have to try that, too.

(the black ones are from my yardlong beans -- gorgeous iridescent black beans that look just like urad dal...)

Ooh, that looks like dinner to me!

Oh man, that looks good to me.
Maybe add a bunch more snap pods and some garlic.
Where's that bass?
And the Sriracha sauce?

Southern peas are picked when the shells become plimp but well before they dry. You usually do get a few that will become snaps. As recommended previously, cook with either ham, ham hocks, smoked bacon, fatback, or preferably salt pork or country ham. Salt and cook with water until done. They are great with fresh sliced tomatoes, fried green tomatoes, fried chicken, pork chops or ham with raw onion cut up in them or with stewed tomatoes and rice along with a piece of cornbread and fresh cream still corn washed down with tons of really sweet tea or leamonade or moonshine with coke. Oh how I miss sitting down with my parents and siblings and eating this. We also sometimes put fresh young okra pods in with the peas near the time they are about done and suck those slick tasty pods down our gullets. Oh the good old days. Linda