Producing Peas: Sugar Snap

The very fist peas I plucked off the plant, here, immortalised forever jus the way I like it

Since declaring myself back from holiday, I appear to have fallen off the face of the planet.  Unfortunately as one always does when one returns from holiday relaxed and refreshed and ready to hit the road running again, I caught a bug on the plane home, struggled through work and took to my bed for most of the weekend feeling pathetic, but I am properly back now and ready to talk peas.

I grew both Sugar Snap Peas and Mange tout this year. I will be discussing both in this post as neither you shell before eating and instead just shove straight in.  My main crop was Sugar Snap in nature, and it would be at this point that I would disclose the variety but stupidly I stuck the label in the ground, never made a note of it and now the label has gone and I have absolutely no idea what it was; smooth.  So if you wanted to grow it as well you can’t, mind you if I want to grow it again I can’t either!  As I started picking them in June this is a bit of a retrospective, but talking about it afterwards means you didn’t get a daily post of ‘I picked a pea!’

I like to intermingle vegetables and alliums, after all they are onions effectively/ the mother stuffed this in when I wasn't looking

As nobody knows the variety there is not much point discussing the flavour at length but they did taste particularly good, certainly worthwhile of the time spent growing them and it was a good cropper producing enough for several meals for three people.  That’s if I managed to get them in the fridge.  The mother has opposing views to me on what to do with produce.  I like to go to my patch daily, gradually gather a nice bag full that I can place in the fridge for a few days to enjoy the smug swell of pride when I go in there, and then people can eat them.  The mother just likes them straight off the plant and unless I keep a beady eye on her is down there munching away and then they are gone and there is no evidence of my hard work.

A nice satisfactory pile

One area that will definitely need improving for next year is in the planting and the staking of the plants.  As I put in a previous post, I didn’t get my patch ready quick enough so I had to plant clumps of pea plants together: not ideal.  Next year I will endeavour to keep my patch in better condition through the winter to prevent a last minute panic.  I was still using fuchsia sticks to stake my plants when I spotted the first peas, but they had all flopped over and started growing horizontally across the lawn hiding the peas from me.  By the time I saw them they had grown into huge, mutant sugar snaps which were sadly, inedible.  Trust me I tried one and it wasn’t pleasant.  Tough and woody, as much as it hurts you just have to throw those big boys away.

Again the first ones I picked all laid out and lovely, not the huge mutant ones thought

After planting my first crop I purchased some half-price mange tout; Mange tout Oregon Sugarpod.  In hindsight I should have left them in the garden centre.  They did not appreciate such late planting, did not grow well and only produced a minimal amount of peas.  On top of that the flavour was terribly weak and watery and after my sugar snap beauties it was quite a disappointment.  Plus at this point I was so bored of endlessly tying twine round stakes Im afraid I did give up on them a bit. 

Overall though a resounding success and next year I plan to grow them from seed, or pea if you will myself so I will be able to stagger them more effectively.