Susan,

Glad you finally got a pea to taste.

I use innoculants sporadically but not often. I'll use one if I am planting peas or beans in an area where no legumes have been grown in recent years. Otherwise, the rhizobia tends to be there in the soil already.

Whether to freeze or refrigerate the seed is your choice. I don't do it because of space considerations. If you do choose to keep it in a freezer or refrigerator, be sure it is in an air-tight container.

I have found that all home-grown peas are infinitely better than any you buy at the store---there is no comparison between the two. That's why I grow so many veggies---because fresh, locally-grown veggies taste like veggies. The produce purchased at the grocery store is grown long distances away and shipped so it is several days old by the time you get it and the quality (and nutrient content) decreases every day. Sometimes you can find snap peas at Farmer's Markets that really are locally grown and fresh, but even they tend not to be quite as fresh and tasty as home-grown.

They show general heat stress....browning, yellowing or fading of the leaves' normally lovely color. They stop blooming or the blooms stop forming into peas. The plants can go from looking pretty good to looking pretty bad practically overnight when the heat arrives.

You do have to plant a lot of seed/plants to get an appreciable amount of peas. I plant 4 packets of seed in the spring and 4 packets in the fall in order to grow all we can eat fresh and have plenty left over to freeze and I tend to plant tall types that get 5' to 8' tall because they produce more peas per square foot for me than dwarf peas. I have found freshly-picked and freshly-frozen sugar snap peas are tastier than frozen sugar snap peas purchased at the grocery store. In a good season (and good is relative because we usually get too hot too early in spring and stay too hot too late in fall), I expect 20-40 lbs. of peas from my long pea bed. Tim and I eat all we get and could eat more if I could grow more, but even in our large garden, there's only so much space I'll give to something whose production is 'iffy'. Some years it gets very hot very early and we get nothing. That's a risk you face in planting many of the cool-season crops in a region like ours where the cool season can be incredibly brief.

Peas are interesting. Even the ones touted as 'mildew-resistant' sometimes get PM and some of the ones not touted as 'mildew-resistant' seem to be quite resistant any way. When the taller ones yield well, they yield incredibly well. I've never been as happy with the yield on the small ones....and I give the smaller ones a 3' tall chicken-wire trellis to climb anyway. I feel like they do better when they have something other than each other to climb.

For the fall, sow your seed in mid-August to early September and expect to begin harvesting, more or less, two months after the peas sprout. It is very weather dependant.

For other fall planting dates and row spacing, etc. I've linked the OSU Fall Planting Guide.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Fall Gardening Guide

Thank you so much, Dawn! I think I might pick a few more before they're gone.

Susan

You're welcome Susan. Mine continue to bloom and so far are setting peas, but even in the last 3 days I'm seeing a real change in how they look. They are no happier with the hot temps and humidity than I am.

I normally grow the one that gets 6 feet tall also, and this year I didn't have that kind of seed (how could that happen) so I planted one I had on hand. It has not been vigorous and I just now have blooms with a few small peas and we have had 3 days of hot weather in a row. Ugh. I expect to get a few, but I normally get to harvest all of the month of May.

Well, I got 8 more peas off the bush to see how the flat pods ranging from that size up to fat pods tasted. They were all DELICIOUS - no bitterness. For that reason, I will probably plant this one again for sure, but more of them. I bought some seed for bush beans today and need to get them planted asap.

Thanks for all your help and advice in helping me.

Susan

PS - unfortunately, they did not make it in to a stir fry! I wanted to enjoy the unadulterated simplicity of peas right off the vine.

PSS - can I plant the beans in the same location as the peas?

Susan,

You're welcome. Yes, you can plant beans where peas have been with no problem.

I think I'm going to pull out my sugar snap peas in the next couple of days, maybe even this evening. I need to get the beans in, we'e had plenty of peas and their productivity has dropped significantly as the heat has arrived.

Dawn