Wednesday, April 20, 2011

How To Plant Peas


The best time to plant peas is when the soil is cool but not cold: peas germinate best at 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Peas may be planted when the soil is as cool as 40 degrees or as warm as 86 degrees, but they will germinate best at 75 degrees. While soil thermometers can be bought at many plant nurseries, I can usually tell by touching the freshly turned soil: cool is fine, but cold soil is not yet ready for peas.
Peas prefer damp (not soggy) soil with a PH of between 6 and 7.
Like many seeds, peas grow best if they are planted at a depth of 4-5 times the width of the seed: practically speaking this works out to peas growing well when planted 1-1.5 inches deep. To allow enough room for strong roots, peas are generally planted 1-2 inches apart.
Peas are usually grown in either single rows or in wide rows. To make a single row, plant the peas about an inch apart in a single row. This has the advantage of being easier to keep hoed. A wide row may be solidly seeded with peas 2 inches apart in a strip up to 1 foot wide. This has the advantage of producing much larger yields in a smaller amount of land, but more hand weeding will be needed.
Whether the rows are wide rows or narrow rows, allow 2 feet between rows of peas.
The tall varieties of peas are generally trellised, and the short varieties frequently are. Without a trellis, pea plants might be damaged if a heavy rainfall beats them down into the muddy earth. I have successfully grown short peas without a trellis, but it is a gamble that you might not wish to take.
Peas will be ready to pick between 55 and 70 days: the shorter peas generally need less time to produce than the tall ones. For this reason, if you live in an area with hot summers you may get a better yield with the shorter varieties of peas. If it is 86 degrees or hotter when the peas bloom, then the pollen will be killed and the peas will not produce.
Ideal conditions for peas are sunny, cool, and moist. If you live in a hot area, it would be best to go with very short-season peas.

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