Unhappy peas 'Cavalier'

[Monika]

We have grown peas Hurst Greenshaft and Cavalier this year. The former are doing fine, in fact we are picking them daily in the garden though the allotment plants are not ready yet, but the Cavalier seem to be struggling. They have only grown about 15 inches and now the bottom leaves are going yellow whilst the tops are starting to flower. I have been concentrating my watering on the peas and broad beans, but that does not seem to make any difference.

The peas were multi-seeded in roottrainers and then planted out and are next to the Hurst Greenshaft with, I would think, identical soil conditions.

[Primrose]

Am not much of a pea expert. Have only grown Kelvenden Wonder in the past but this year have grown some wonderful mangetout. However I was puzzled by the fact that halfway through producing the pods the leaves turned from dark green to a very pale green/yellowish and looked distinctly sickly. It didn't affect the quality of the pods but I'm wondering if this was caused by some sudden soil deficiency as the same thing happened with the other half of the row, which was a different variety of Mangetout.
My second row Iis now about 12 inches high and looking rather thin and depleted, but I notice this sometimes seems to happen with a second sowing later in the year although I don't understand why when they are growing in the same soil conditions.

[Elaine]

Hello Monika. Our first sowing was Early Onward in March, sown in pots in the greenhouse, then planted out. They grew away perfectly then started going yellow at the bottom of the plants. We thought they were goners to be honest but they flowered well and produced lots of pods...all finished now. The yellowing didn't seem to affect the number or quality of the pods and the peas were very good. We did have a frost and assumed it was responsible for their sickly look but I'm not sure.

The second and subsequent sowings are Hurst Greenshaft, sown direct and they are doing well, flowering away with no sign of the yellowing leaves....so far.

[Primrose]

Do you think peas need some special kind of extra feeding once they start producing pods in the same way that we're advised to start feeding tomatoes once fruits start appearing on trusses. I tend to use Tomorite as a general fertiliser for most vegs and wonder whether a dose of this would perk the plants up a little?

[Monika]

Thank you, Primrose and Elaine. It sounds more hopeful, perhaps they WILL produce enough peas in the end.

Like you, Primrose, I have thought about the feeding, though. The bed with the peas (and broad beans) held the brassicas last year which must take a lot of nutrients out of the soil but, as one is told feeding legumes leads to lots of foliage and not enough pods, I have not fed the soil in any way. Perhaps they could do with a little booster, liquid seaweed, perhaps. Unfortunately, our ground is so hard that I dare not risk it at the moment. We have had no "proper" rain since 7 June, just some drizzly bits since then, and nothing at all for days.

Today's forecast was for heavy showers. What did we get? Zilch.

[Elaine]

We don't feed our peas at all, though we apply Growmore to the soil when we prepare the bed, a couple of weeks before sowing/planting out. We give them plenty of water when they are flowering, so they don't get dry.
Our brassicas follow the legumes, as they fix nitrogen in the soil. We cut the pea and bean tops off and dig the roots in.

The Early Onward, which went yellow at the bottom of the plants did grow green on top of that. I was surprised we got such a good yield from them really. I hope yours turn out okay too.