Topic: Peas without support

[daninlondon]

Is it possible to grow peas without support? I can’t believe that pea farmers spend their mornings looking for twiggy-sticks.

[Jeannine]

I love this comment, nor do I think they place them by hand a 6 inch intervals,nor do come to that,thanks for the laugh.XX Jeannine

[jennym]

I believe that the peas grown commercially are almost leafless, mature all at the same time, and have the habit of being fairly short and with lots of tendrils that sort of twine themselves around each other. I know that 2 of the varieties used are Bikini and Ambassador.

[simon404]

If you don't use supports then your peas will sprawl around on the ground making it difficult to weed between rows and harvest, sunlight won't get to them to ripen the pods and also the slugs will eat them at ground level. Farmers don't need to weed because they soak the ground in herbicde before sowing and use combines to harvest. I believe there are varieties that grow so small (in height) they don't need support but you wouldn't get much of a crop, wheras farmers have acres to play with. (I think Bird's Eye use a variety called, unsurprisinly, Birds Eye but it isn't available to us ameteur growers). Personally I use posts with baler twine strung between them rather than pea sticks.  :)

[redimp]

You can also get them semi-leafless if you really want. Just remember that "farmer's peas" are all designed to be ready at exactly the same time so that they can be mechanically harvested, whereas most "gardener's peas" are longer cropping so that they can be harvested over a longer period.

[nitiram]

Daft question from a novice.....how and when do I put in my pea sticks? Does it have to be twiggy bits or can I grow them up canes like beans? Or up a netting put to one side of the row?   Help :-\ :-\ ???

[SMP1704]

There just aren't enough twiggy sticks around.........so I use two pieces of pallet wood as the posts and run bean netting between them and run some string across the top so that it is reasonably rigid.  At the end of last season, I rolled them up and can use them again this year.  thinking I might use canes instead of string to provide greater rigidity.

HTH

[daninlondon]

redclanger: Thanks for the link. I’d quite like it if all my peas were ready at the same time, because there’s quite a narrow time frame when they’re at their best. Last year, I would pull off the fleece and find that about eight pods were ready each day. If I’d have grown ten times as many peas, I might have been able to get a meal’s worth, but this would mean I’d have to eat peas all the time. I’d love a fortnightly glut if I could time the succession.

nitiram: Little twiggy bits are best, but pea plants can’t grab onto anything as thick as a cane. We used plastic pea netting last year, and it’s annoyingly fiddly. Many people use wire netting as it’s sturdier and easier to remove the plants at the end of the season. I’ve seen some growers use string stretched between posts – have a look at simon404’s blog.

I like the sound of Endeavour peas – ‘almost’ self-supporting. Has anyone tried these?

I’m still trying to work out a support system which (a) lets me protect against the twin menaces of the pigeon and the pea moth, and (b) is not fiddly and time consuming.

[Sprout]

'Twinkle' peas are supposed to be self supporting if grown close together. I've got some for the first time this year so we'll see if they 'work'.

[daninlondon]

Twinkle peas sound great! Let me know how they do.

[saddad]

I am boring old school... won't consider a pea unless it gets to 5' some like Magnum Bonum can exceed 2 Meters....


 ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

I like the big ones as well; apparently they went out of fashion when pea sticks became harder to get. i haven't tried Magnum Bonum; I've grown Alderman in the past, which is the easily obtainable one. This year I've got a few seeds of Ne Plus Ultra and Purple-Podded from Chiltern Seeds, and if they're any good I'm planning to save my own.

[flossie]

What stunning flowers.  I will have to look again at varieties.

[manicscousers]

we use chicken wire, works well for us  ;D

[kitten]

I've got kelvedon wonder and meteor peas from lidl's - they both say self supporting, and the packets reckon they'll only grow to about 2 ft high.  It's our first year so it's all a bit of an experiment, so we'll have to see what happens.  Might just stick in a couple of posts & some string between them just incase.  Anyone grown these - what are they like?

[saddad]

Both nice reliable peas Kitten but I'd still give them a little support..
 :-\

[kitten]

Thanks saddad, will do  ;)

[Mrs greenjeans]

Can I be a complete drongo and ask what is a pea stick?
 ???

I grew my first ever and very small but very tasty pea crop last year and tried putting them up bamboo canes with twine strung between them - not at all recommended. This year I was going to try that green netting, but  I can see the points above that it would be fiddly to get them out of it at the end of the season...

[manicscousers]

the bowling green by us has been pruning their trees and bushes, we'll use the prunings as pea sticks, just twiggy sticks the peas can cling to, some will have to make do with chicken wire as we have some of that as well  ;D

[SMP1704]

Perhaps its just me, but I haven't found the bean/pea netting to be at all fiddly.  When the peas are finished, I just pull them off and any bits left behind soon dry and fall off or can be picked off next time I use the net.

Now looking for suitable twiggy sticks - that was fiddly ;D