I concluded my pea experience (not really an experiment as there were no controls and no hypothesis to test) today. I tried growing Green Arrow peas. Here's what happened in a nut shell (or a pea pod as the case may be): squirrels or chipmunks plagued my early planting. I decided to plant directly in the EB with no cover and the critters enjoyed my early efforts. I went for high density planting (about 1seed per 2 inches). Had good germination among the seeds that were not squirrel food. Planted additional seeds. After the plants were growing well I made two poor tactical decisions: no trellis (supposedly not needed on this variety) and putting a new bird feeder above the peas. I am not sure which was dumber. After all was said an done I had a whopping 14 oz of peas with shells and about 7 oz of edible peas, enough to eat out of hand but not really enough for two portions. On the plus side the peas are absolutely delicious; I don't recall ever having peas as sweet as these.
I have plenty of pea seeds so I will try again in the fall but this time I will use a trellis, move the EB away from the bird feeder, and use pepper spray to ward off seed thieves.
Your thoughts and advice are, as usual, much appreciated.
Thoughts on growing peas in an EB
sounds like a good plan. i grew sugar snaps and have tons of flowers but have not seen one pod yet.
sorry about your luck escubed. Atleast the peas you did eat were tasty.
Herbie, how long ago did you sow your seeds? I have 3 Gardener's Supply self-watering boxes that don't have anything in them yet. I've got some sugar-snap seeds and some cuke seeds I thought about putting in them. I know that it may be a little too late for the cukes but why not see what happens.