Mar 31 / rebecca

Peas, Please

There’s nothing quite like the taste of a a just-picked sugar snap pea. They’re super sweet, like a crunchy succulent candy. Last year I grew peas in a container on my deck. But this year I’m taking full advantage of having a backyard (I know, I’m saying this in just about every post — that’s how excited I am to have more gardening space!) and am growing even more peas. Yesterday I had the day off work for Cesar Chavez Day, and decided to spend the day gardening. I made a pea trellis! Somehow this is incredibly exciting.

The peas on the right are looking a little sickly. I bought them as starts and they had been in the six-pack too long. I like an underdog though, and gave them lots of yummy (well, to the plants) grape pomace compost to nourish them back to vibrance. I tied them gently to the stakes because they had been flopping over and needed a let help getting their vertical on. On the left are two of the gorgeous healthy peas I grew from seed. This is what they looked like pre-planting:

Making the trellis was easy. I already had stakes, and each pea plant got its own. Then I wove string horizontally across all the stakes. As peas grow, they will send out shoots galore. The more that the tendrils have to twirl around, the better. Use tall stakes, because you’ll be amazed at how high peas can climb. My peas in a container last year were over four feet tall and started to flop over.

Here’s a bigger view of the trellis:

If you’re gardening in a small space, even on an apartment balcony, peas are a great option, because you can plop them in a container (go with one about a foot deep) and just let them go vertical. But do give them something for their tendrils to wind around as they climb up, up, up. I also planted violas in the pot last year. The pop of bright purplish blue was gorgeous next tot he springy green of the pea plants.

If you’ve got space, in the ground or in a container, peas are such a good plant to grow. Look how much they’re going for at the farmers market right now!

Happy spring and happy planting.