Topic: Best way to start my peas

[telboy]

I'm with Gavin's original reply. Did two 30' triple rows today. Don't have mice probs. so looking forward to a healthy crop.

[Paulines7]

I start mine off indoors on the working surface in a utility room and currently have some in jiffy7's and some in an ice cream carton in compost and vermiculite .  Because the weather has been so cold though, I haven't been able to plant them out. 

They already have flowers on and there are also some pods that have developed already!  I was going to plant them out yesterday but then I noticed a frost was due. Once they are planted, I will start off a few more.  The ones in the ice cream carton have done just as well as the jiffy ones so I won't use the jijjy's for peas in future as they are expensive to buy.

[chriscross1966]

I was planning on planting out the first wrinkle-seeded sowings this weekend, but as mentioned above the temperatures drove me to keep them in the sheltered bit behind the greenhouse.... I have sown another tray of each Hurst Greenshaft and Ne PLus Ultra today, so that's another 5 feet of each.... might well get some more Telefono going soon, and possibly a load more HGS, I need to work out what's going where, but if I can spare another 20 foot row for peas then it's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned, I love peas....

[Robert_Brenchley]

My wrinkle-seeded peas are coming up very happily under cover.

[Vinlander]

If you have really hungry mice then you want to get the pea plants so big that the seed is worn-out and tasteless.

Guttering is a bit too shallow for this and dries out too quickly for me (and it's a pig to water when it's dry - though it helps if you include some soil in the mix to aid wetting).

Pots are too fiddly - unless you are growing the 6- footer Alderman types 10mm or more apart.

The best trick is to remove the two long thin sides from 1L juice 'bricks' so you have a long deep bottomless pot - 5 will fit neatly in a standard drip tray, and then they are really easy to water.

I put 9 peas in each and when they are 150-200mm high I space each 'pot'  to make 1m of row from each tray - it's the work of seconds and you don't even have to remove the pots (unless you want to re-use them) as all the roots go straight out the bottom.

It's so easy it's worth using as your standard method - mice or no mice - especially for the first 2 or 3 sowings (though I skip the first sowing of really dwarf varieties and plant direct a little later).

It's also good for starting dwarf french beans - and 6pint milk containers make a larger pot for climbing french that fit 4 to a tray.

Cheers.

[kippers garden]

I grow mine in short pieces of guttering as this way the mice don't eat all the seeds.  You can see pictures of how I prepare the guttering and sow the peas in the guttering here:

http://notjustgreenfingers.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/peas-soup-and-a-frozen-yoghurt-recipe/

...and also how to get them out of the guttering here:

http://notjustgreenfingers.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/how-to-get-peas-out-of-guttering-and-my-bean-trenches/

Hope this helps