Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: JJ on April 23, 2013, 22:00:51
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Got all my tomatoes and chillies all potted up in 6'' pots ,but I'm struggling with the peas
Can someone tell me the best way to start them
Many thanks jj
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In the ground... dig a trench 6" wide x 2" deep. Throw in your seed at 12 per foot spread evenly, cover, water well and they will be up in about 10 days. Cover with netting for the birds for a few weeks.
It saves all the trouble of modules and re-planting. Keep things simple..
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I find the easy way is to start them off in bedding strips on a window sill or in the GH if it doesn't get too hot.... each strip represents a foot of row.... still needs something to keep the pigeons off, but as you're planting out 6" plants it saves you from the vagaries of outdoor germination....
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I'd be with Gavin but my plot is overpopulated with long tailed field mice who can dig them up at a rate of a row per night! red lead is hard to find, paraffin is not within my definition of organic and the neighbours cat is over-pampurred (sic) and generally discouraged. How do you attract owls?
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I made a garlic and chilli tea and poured it directly on the pea seeds then covered them with soil and gave another dose on the surface of the row.
If those mice can smell the peas through the garlic - they'd better enjoy a vindaloo!
Serve them right.
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Without a doubt the best Way to start your peas off is in guttering. You can put the guttering virtually antwhere so mice etc cant get at them. When you put one length out refill it so you are growing continuous.
When you put them out just gice the guttering a good water and they slide out
(http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r111/stumpinsci/Picture016_zpsb8066182.jpg) (http://s142.photobucket.com/user/stumpinsci/media/Picture016_zpsb8066182.jpg.html)
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I chit mine in kitchen roll on northfacing windowsill. Then I put them outside under bottle cloches. I put cloches well down into the soil to stop them blowing off. We have loads of voles who are particularly keen on peas.
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I don't have any chance of getting peas if I were to sow direct (tried so many times and now stopped waisting my seeds) and actually find module sowing very little trouble.
I use 6 cell trays and put 5 or 6 peas per cell. Usually get near 100% germination :icon_cheers:..then plant them out (not big job) and off they go! I do have to net them against my flying friends and keep checking the nets every day for any possible entry holes or my plants turn into 'salad bar'.
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Gutters for the early short variety and milk cartons for the biggies :happy7:
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I soak mine overnight to rehydrate them, and usually use the guttering method...3ft strips are handleable...but this time round have put them straight in the ground to see what happens under the cloches..what the heck, if you don't experiment you'll never know eh! :tongue3:
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Another easy method is to prepare your ground /bed and put your peas in and cover with soil. Place pollythene over the top and weight it down to keep the pest out. The clear pollythene keeps the soil moist so you only have to check on them every few days to see if they have germinated.
(http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r111/stumpinsci/Picture020_zps95b49036.jpg) (http://s142.photobucket.com/user/stumpinsci/media/Picture020_zps95b49036.jpg.html)
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I am a great believer in guttering, and have a good stretch of peas planted out already and growing away strongly, but yesteray I watched a friend putting hers out and decided her method was even better. She simply lined a large cardboard box with lots of newspaper and filled it thickly with compost and pea seeds. She had lifted the newspaper and compost out of the box and was grabbing great handfuls of healthy green plants to set out in a thick double row across her plot. It made my guttering look rather small scale and finicky. My next wave of peas is definitely going to be done this way, starting in the back garden (protected against birds).
I find sowing direct is always very disappointing.
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I did mine like gavinjconway their up about 3" and very healthy ,no problems with mice at the moment.
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Nailed guttering to post on lottie, filled with compost and then peas...watered then covered them with cling film. Job done.
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I start mine in pots, but I grow a lot of different varieties, and plant each one round its own wigwam.
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On my allotment site we have a great of trouble with mice eating peas. For the last couple of seasons I have soaked the peas in tepid water for an hour prior to chitting. I let the peas chit until the roots are about 3/4" to 1" in length and then set in a 6" wide trench. This system has worked favourably for myself and has now been adopted by other members on our site with a great deal of success. The mice just do not bother the peas when they have started to shoot. This morning I have set a full row of Kelvedon Wonder peas whch have been chitting for almost 2 weeks in a dark cupboard in my office at home
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I am a great believer in guttering, and have a good stretch of peas planted out already and growing away strongly, but yesteray I watched a friend putting hers out and decided her method was even better. She simply lined a large cardboard box with lots of newspaper and filled it thickly with compost and pea seeds. She had lifted the newspaper and compost out of the box and was grabbing great handfuls of healthy green plants to set out in a thick double row across her plot. It made my guttering look rather small scale and finicky. My next wave of peas is definitely going to be done this way, starting in the back garden (protected against birds).
I find sowing direct is always very disappointing.
More info please. Box how thick, wide etc.? Newspaper how many layers? I might try this at w/e.
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I did an article here on starting peas in the greenhouse..
http://www.seedparade.co.uk/news/sowing/starting-peas-off-in-the-greenhouse/
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I'm not sure the details you ask about matter very much. I have just filled a large shoe box (big, for boots, lined thickly with newspaper) with mixture of compost and garden soil, watered it, arranged chitted peas quite thickly over the top, added more compost and watered it, and am leaving in shady corner on currently rather hot allotment. I'm about to wrap up in netting and/or fleece against rabbits and birds. Took minutes compared to my usual careful arrangements in guttering.
My friend's box was bigger than mine, and because she started it off a month or more ago when it was very cold and windy, she would have kept it under shelter. Her and my newspaper was perhaps 10 or more layers thick, and she lifted hers out of the box on it before scooping up her handfuls of pea plants fairly ruthlessly. Of course we don't yet know how they are all going to turn out. Sorry not to be more precise.......
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Just started the second lot of tall peas in 1 ltr milk cartons. The first lot are up, much easier than root trainers :toothy10:
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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.
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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.
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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....
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My wrinkle-seeded peas are coming up very happily under cover.
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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.
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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