Broadband Peas

Broadband peas.....sounds like an Internet thing. Funny! Ok, ok, just my attempt at humor.  Broad banding is just a variation in pea planting methods. I've tried single rows, double rows, and rows spaced 12" apart. I wanted to see what would happen if I planted them in a wide trench, sowing the seed about 2"-3" apart in all directions. 

Making the trench was simple. Using a garden rake, I pulled back the soil, leaving a shallow trench behind. Into that went the peas. 

After watering the seed, I gently and carefully pulled back the soil to cover the pea seed. Now it's a wait & see game. 

Will the pea vines self support one another? This variety has a 30" vine. Will the harvest be more than if I had sown the peas into two separate rows spaced a foot apart? Would it be easier or faster harvesting peas with this growing technique? I'm always curious to see what happens. 

Anyway.....here's what they look like today. I got nice germination and the plants look good so far. 

Pea Growing Notes

Growing peas can be done year around on my homestead, but they don't do as well during the summer months. More disease problems from June to October. 

Germination

I don't have any problems getting peas to germinate. 

Bush vs Pole

I tend to grow the short vines varieties only because I don't have enough trellis space available yet. The longer vines, when grown up a trellis, I find are easier to care for and pick. Even getting the shorter vines up on a pea fence will make picking easier. As I age, those long vines running up trellises are looking more and more appealing. 

Pea Type

I grow shell, snow, snap and dry peas. I love them all. Surprise, even hubby likes them. Finally a veggie that I can grow that hubby likes to eat! 

Harvesting

   When to harvest depends upon the type of pea. Shell peas are best when the peas are developing but not too big. The bigger they get, the less sweet they are. It takes a little experience to get it right. 

   Snow peas get picked when the pods are getting to a decent size but before the peas themselves start barely to plump up. If they get too developed, I find that their flavor isn't as good, sometimes they get bitter, and they surely get more fibrous. 

   Snap peas are sweetest when the pods are plumping out. They'll edible before that but not sweet. 

   Dry peas get harvested here just as the pods are mature and filled out. I can't wait for them to dry in the vine because it's too moist on the homestead. The peas will simply germinate right in the pods. So I pick them when they are mature and just starting to dry. I then shell them and allow the peas to complete drying on trays in the house. Or if it is breezy, I will pull the vines and hang them from the rafters of the lanai so they can dry. Down on my seed farm I can allow the peas to naturally dry in the vine. 

Growing Tips 

My pea plants grow best when I till the top 3-6 inches of soil prior to seeding. I normally till in some compost, the old mulch, and a light sprinkling of coral sand, wood ash, bone dust, and lava sand. For varieties that I'm not trellising or growing on a pea fence, I will plant the seed in a 2 inch grid to fill the bed. Under a trellis or pea fence I will sow three rows about two inches apart, with the in-row spacing being two inches. I poke the seeds down about an inch and cover them with soil. Then I water the bed. 

Problems 

I don't see problems with every pea crop, but problems are common enough here. Summertime sees more disease problems. I find that I get one or two good pickings before things go badly, so I plan on getting that early harvest then removing the vines. Trying to capture every last pea isn't worth it to me. I'd rather get another crop going. 

...slugs will eat the pods.

...turkeys will pluck the peas right out of the pods. 

...cutworms will shear off emerging seedlings.

...turkeys will eat emerging seedlings. 

...leaf miners tunnel in the leaves. 

...stink bugs damage the pods.

...Ascochyta blight ruins the crop. 

...mildew damages the plants. 

...and some sort of disease that misshapens the pods. The early pods are fine, but later pods are warped. 

Varieties I Grow

Regularly I grow Green Arrow, Alaska, Cascadia, Oregon Giant, Sugar Sprint, Super Snappy, Sugar Lace. But I also like to grow others off and in, such as Sugar Ann, Mammoth Melting, Yellow Snow Pea. This year I'm going to try a new one, Royal Snow. And of course there will be others here and there in the gardens, because as hubby says, my ears perk up when I see peas on a seed rack. I just gotta try a new variety. 

Pea Ascochyta

I've been hit by a disease new to me. I haven't seen it before. But the weather these past several weeks has been prime for encouraging diseases, especially fungal ones. And that's what is getting my peas, fungal diseases ......ascochyta. 

At first I thought that I had planted some infected seed, because I first noticed this on one variety. But a more careful look showed that all the peas were showing signs. Every variety, young and old. Those planted up by the house, along the driveway, back by the pasture, and down in the main garden area. So now I'm thinking that the spores are blowing in from some other location. With the daily rain and lack of good sunshine, it doesn't surprise me that fungus is happy. 

I hoped that the weather would dry out, but no such luck. All the pea plants are dying, so I took them all out today. A total loss of the crop. 

From what I gathered on the Internet, there's not much to be done. Removing the plants and avoiding planting peas again in the vicinity is all I can do. So I will forego peas until the weather dries out. Then I will try them in a totally new area....and cross my fingers. 

Planting Peas in a Bed

Today I managed a bit of time to get one things planted in the garden -- taro, cowpeas, beans, and peas. With the gigantic windstorm clean-up project, I haven't had much time to get to much else. But if I wanted to keep a food supply flowing, I needed to start getting caught up on the garden schedule. I'm not really all that good yet at keeping to a planting schedule, and now I'm way behind. 

I had harvested two taro plants last week and still hadn't replanted the ohas and huli. So that got done.  With the job completed, I asked myself why I had put it off. It only took 15 minutes. Sigh. That's what happened when I get overwhelmed. Even small jobs get put off. Sigh again. 

The beans, peas, and cowpeas were more involved. These three went into the garden beds, so I had a bit of prep to do. 

1- Chop or pull out the major weeds. 

2- Test the soil pH. I knew from past testing that the soil was in pretty good shape, but with the volcano spewing out tons of SO2, the pH has been bouncing all over the place. I've been adding calcium carbonate between each crop, which slowly helps control pH. But sometimes I need wood ashes to align the pH quicker. So today's tests showed the soil too acidic, thus a dressing of wood ash was called for. I have no special formula for how much ash to use. I just dust it on like adding powdered sugar over a cake. Since I test the soil between each crop, I don't worry about it. Plus the amount of vog I get is unpredictable, making pH control far from being a precise science project. I also added a light dusting of coral sand (calcium carbonate source), some crushed heat treated bone, and a bit of biochar though I didn't have very much today.

3- Top dress with a light layer of manure and/compost. Which do I pick? Easy -- whichever I happen to have. Today's choice was horse manure. I seldom have an excess of either manures or compost, so it's whatever I'm lucky to have that's ready. Maybe some day I'll be fortunate enough to put more science behind this step. 

4- Flip the soil. If the soil is rather firm, I'll use the rototiller, the beds I planted today were all in good shape so it was faster just to use a garden fork and flip the soil. This step not only mixes the amendments in a bit, but also assures that the soil is light and airy, thus ready for young seedlings to grow. 

5- sow the seeds. 

No, I'm not being paid by Stokes to advertise their seeds. I just happened to use a bag of Stokes seeds and forgot to move the packet for the photo shoot. 

With the beans, cowpeas, and peas I lay out the seeds on top of the soil. Peas are spaced about every 2-3 inches, beans about every 3-4 inches, and cowpeas about every 6 inches. Today's varieties were all bush types, so no trellising had to be taken into account. Once the seed is spaced, then I go back and push each one I to the soil, about an inch down. 

Now it's time to set the seed. By this I mean that I pat the soil down, making sure the seed is firmly surrounded by soil. Soil contact with the seed is important. Next I water the seed in. Any seed that floats to the surface by the watering process just gets poked back down.

With my night time temperatures being below 60 degrees, I'm using a plastic cover to increase soil temperature. This results in far better and faster germination. Plus it keeps the soil moist. The wind here dries out the soil surface every day. 

I use whatever I happen to have to hold the plastic sheeting down. Today was some pieces from a wood pallet and some rocks. Since the plastic is only going to be in place for a few days, I don't get too fancy or complicated with it.