When to sow peas

Peas are a cool-season crop and one of the first things you can sow in spring. Round-seeded (smooth) peas are the hardiest: they germinate in soil from about 41°F, so in Germany, Austria and Switzerland you can sow them from mid-March once the ground has dried out enough to work. In the UK, March is the usual start.

Wrinkled-seeded peas, the sweet garden peas most people grow, and mangetout and sugar snaps are fussier. Their seed rots more easily in cold, wet soil, so wait until April, when the soil is nearer 46–50°F, and keep sowing until June. Sugar snaps can go in until early July.

For a steady supply, sow a short row every two to three weeks, or sow an early and a maincrop variety on the same day. Early sowings also have a practical advantage: they flower before the pea moth flies in midsummer, and they finish before powdery mildew takes hold in late summer.

In mild UK gardens some people sow a hardy round variety in October or November and cover it with cloches for an early crop the next year. In most of Central Europe that is a gamble; a March sowing is more reliable.

Choose a sunny spot with moist but free-draining soil. Peas dislike acid ground and waterlogging; on a cold, heavy soil, wait a little longer in spring. Dig in some compost in autumn or a few months ahead, but no fresh manure: peas make their own nitrogen.

Sow straight into the bed, 1.6–2 in deep, or up to 2.4–3 in on light, sandy soil so the seed stays moist. A practical layout is a double row: two lines about 4 in apart with a pea every 2 in. Leave 16–20 in to the next double row. Some gardeners sow in a flat-bottomed drill as wide as a spade and scatter the peas across it.

In a 120 × 80 cm raised bed, two double rows along the long side, each with a net or brushwood between its two lines, take about 90–100 peas. Tall varieties need the whole height of a net, so put them where they won't shade your other crops.

Mice love freshly sown peas. If they are a problem in your garden, start peas in pots, modules or a length of guttering under cover in February or March and plant them out once they are sturdy and well rooted. Pigeons and sparrows go for young shoots, so a layer of netting or fleece helps at first.

Peas climb with tendrils and need something thin to grip. Dwarf varieties around 18 in tall manage with a few twiggy sticks; tall ones can reach 71 in and need a proper net, wire mesh or hazel brushwood. Put supports in when you sow, or at the latest when the plants are a hand high, before they flop.

Peas need little water early on, and too much in cold weather does more harm than good. Once they start to flower, water well and again about two weeks later: that is when a dry spell costs you pods. A mulch keeps the soil moist and cool.

Keep the rows weeded while the plants are small. They need no extra feeding.

Expect the first pods about 12 weeks after sowing for early varieties and 14–16 weeks for maincrops, so from June onwards. With staggered sowings you can pick into August or later.

Shelling peas are ready when the pods are well filled and you can feel the peas through them, but before the pods lose their shine. Mangetout are picked flat, when the peas inside have only just started to show; sugar snaps when the pods are round and crisp but still tender.

Pick every couple of days. Plants that are left with mature pods stop flowering. The sugar in peas turns to starch quickly after picking, so eat them fresh or cool and freeze them straight away.

When the plants are finished, cut them off at the base and leave the roots in the ground to rot down.

Round (smooth-seeded) peas are the hardiest and best for the earliest sowings, but less sweet. Wrinkled (marrowfat-type) garden peas are sweeter and the choice from April. Petit pois are small, very sweet shelling peas.

Mangetout (snow peas) have flat, stringless pods eaten whole. Sugar snaps have fat, crunchy pods, also eaten whole. Both escape pea moth because you pick them before the peas develop.

Heights run from about 18 in to 71 in. Short varieties suit windy gardens and small raised beds; tall ones crop for longer.

Pea moth lays its eggs on flowering peas in June and July, and the small caterpillars eat the peas inside the pods. Sow early or late so that the plants flower outside that window, or cover them with fleece or fine mesh while they flower. Peas pollinate themselves, so covering them does no harm.

Pea and bean weevils nibble U-shaped notches into the leaf edges in spring. It looks worse than it is; well-grown plants shrug it off.

Powdery mildew coats the leaves white, mostly on late sowings in dry, warm weather with cool nights. Early sowings, good air flow on a support and watering at the base help.

Peas belong to the legume family with beans. Soil-borne root and foot rots build up where they grow year after year, so leave at least four years, better five or six, before peas return to the same bed.

Traditional planting tables pair peas with carrots, lettuce, kohlrabi, cabbages, fennel and dill, and keep them away from beans, onions, garlic, leeks, tomatoes and potatoes. We found no trials behind these pairings; they are gardening tradition.

What does hold up: peas take up little space for a short time, so a quick crop of lettuce or radishes beside them works well, and after them the bed suits a hungry crop such as cabbage or leeks. Keep other legumes out of the pea bed for the reasons above.