Sowing Peas

[Geoff]

Which method of sowing peas is best?
I used to sow direct but like most people got patchy results presumably caused by wet and pests. For a few years now I have been using the deepest root trainers and have got good germination but I am not convinced the plants have grown as well. I know I can discount last year as they just gave up in the wet. Perhaps I am not gentle enough when I plant them out. This year I have some guttering available but I have never tried this method.
Has anybody used both methods and developed a preference?
I'm not planning to do it until April - just crossed my mind while I was putting them in the diary.

[Chantal]

When I grow peas I always find the guttering method to be the best.

However, use curved and not squared guttering (as I did) or they are difficult to push out.

[Johnboy]

Hi Geoff,
Like Chantal I used to use 5" half-round guttering but due to advancing years I found that I could not manage to lay out the crop and I went on to use 7cm square pots. I ended up by sowing 3 peas per pot in an arrow formation. I tried other configurations but decided that three per pot was best.
In plan: left hand side top corner of pot 1cm in and 1cm down sow, bottom corner 1cm in 1cm up sow. Right hand side centre line 1 cm in sow. Simply grow them on the bench and planting to me is much easier than guttering (for me I must stress) If you are hail and hearty and agile like Chantal use the gutter method 'cos it's a lot quicker.
Rodent protection is needed hereabouts and I made shields of expanded metal lath leaving sufficient room for the peas to grow.
JB.

[Monika]

I mix the pea seeds with damp potting compost and wait till they are growing both a short root and leaf sprout and then sow them virtually on the surface, then ridge the soil up from one side only, so that alongside each row of peas there is a shallow depression. All rows are then covered with a wire netting tunnel (just a length of 3ft wire netting slightly bent lengthways) to keep the birds off until the plants have grown a bit. When, eventually, the peas are fruiting I pour copious amounts of water into the depression next to the rows.

Our entire allotment is on a west facing slope so that the rows go north-south and the depression is on the east, that is, upper side of the rows so that the water runs down towards the roots.

All sounds very complicated but isn't really and has been working well for many years. I have tried the guttering but have always found it difficult to slide the whole lot out of the guttering (even after spraying WD40 onto the plastic before filling them with soil!).

[Colin_M]

I have been using the deepest root trainers and have got good germination but I am not convinced the plants have grown as well

Hi Geoff, can you tell us a little more about why you think they could have done better?

I've used root trainers for the last 2 years with peas. However I've never grown peas prior to that (so don't know what I'm missing!). The last two years have been a very pleasant surprise as our crop seemed to do well.


Colin

[Geoff]

Colin :
The plants didn't grow as big as previously and hence had a lower yield. I only grow Greenshaft in ordinary peas. Looking back through my diaries I direct sowed about 14th April but sowed in the root trainers about two weeks earlier. Perhaps I was just too early.
My original thought was root disturbance. I didn't let them get pot bound in the trainers so they broke up as I planted them, they were in general purpose peat based compost. How solid did you let them get and what was the compost?

[Monika]

Sorry to butt in, Colin and Geoff, but I think that is the good thing about "my" method (see above) in that I don't actually let the peas take root when I sow them, but because they already have a mini-root and mini-shoot, they are away into the ground. And we have certainly found that these semi-germinated peas are no longer so attractive to mice and voles.

I have tried peas in roottrainers (I certainly use them for broad, French and runner beans successfully) but find that their root system isn't really strong enough to fill the pot and it all makes it too fiddly.

[Weed]

As an aside Monika...I have never used root trainers.
I have always considered them as not being very robust and with my large and awkward hands I might tend to destroy them very quickly.

I like the sound of your 'pea trick' and intend giving it a go

[Johnboy]

Hi Monica,
I rather think that Mice will take an interest in Peas just so long as the cotyledon is supplying food to the plant. This could be up to several weeks after you have sown them. The little buggers can smell the food.
With your method of germinating I have a friend that does exactly the same with Beans. He part fills a polythene bag with slightly moistened M P Compost and simple puts the beans in and hangs the bag on the back of his shed door and as they germinate he sows them direct into the ground under rodent protection. He was a German prisoner of war and stayed after WW2 and married a local girl. He says that he remembers his father using the method so he simply followed what he did.
JB.

[Weed]

Did any of you take note of the trick someone submitted in a recent magazine?

Crush some strong mints and spread along where the peas are....Mice, allegedly, are not partial to strong mints....