How to Plant Container Peas for the Fall & Spring Garden: A Two Season Crop!
Peas are cool weather vegetables which mean they like to grow in the early spring and fall. They do best when nights are in the 50's and days just edge into the 70's. If it gets too hot... they stop producing and will die out.. They can take a light frost and do just fine but will die out when the regular heavy frosts set in .
Peas are one of the best if not best container vegetables to grow. They are easy to grow, need minimal care and even fix their own nitrogen. That is sort of a fancy way to say they fertilize themselves for the most part. I did a 4 part video series on growing fall peas. Everything is explained and you could of course apply this to growing spring container peas.
The 1st of 4 videos talks about the different types of peas, how many you can plant in a container and the general planting depth of a pea seed. It also talks about using the right size container and how to set it up. I use a 5 gallon container which can support anywhere from 4-8 plants. This video will get you started growing peas.
The 2nd of 4 videos talks about trellising your peas and it will give you some basic design ideas. Peas can grow up to 8 feet tall. They have hollow fragile stems that will break easily if not supported. A trellis can be made from tree branches or any material really.
The 3rd of 4 videos talks about tending and feeding your container pea plants. Peas have a root system that fix their own nitrogen from the soil and air. They don't typically have issue with getting nitrogen but vegetables also need potassium, phosphorous and other micro-nutrients. This video presents you with a basic water soluble feeding routing to help you get the most out of your container peas. There are many ways to feed your peas and vegetables. This is just one approach.
The final video shows you how to harvest your peas. I show off the mature plants that started as seeds in the first video and now they have grown up into mature plants. Remember peas have hollow stems and picking them can sometimes break stems. You don't want to accidentally break of the growing tip. Peas will produce for many weeks.
Here is a basic picking technique and my mature pea plants. I hope you give peas a try. You never tasted peas until you have eaten a freshly grown and picked pea pod. The sweetness is amazing. Once picked, pea sugars start turning to starches, even after a few days of travel to your local grocery store... they lose flavor and sweetness. Enjoy!
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