How to grow snow peas, and when to sow them here

Snow peas are a cool-season crop, and that decides everything

Snow peas are about as easy as a vegetable gets, and the one thing that reliably goes wrong is the timing, because people sow them in spring alongside the tomatoes and then wonder why the plants go yellow and stop podding by November. Peas grow in the cold. They germinate happily in soil that a bean would rot in, they flower through winter, and they shut down as soon as the weather warms up properly, so getting the sowing date right is most of the job.

The two windows that work

Autumn is the main one. Sow from about March through to May and the plants establish in warm soil, grow through the cool months and give you pods from the middle of winter onwards, which is exactly when there is nothing else in the patch. The second window is late winter into early spring, roughly August into September, which gives you a faster crop that finishes before the heat arrives. Both of them beat a spring sowing, because once the days are consistently over about 26 degrees the flowers stop setting and powdery mildew moves in, and the plant is finished whether you like it or not.

Sow a short row every 2 to 3 weeks through the window rather than the whole packet at once, and you get a steady picking instead of a fortnight of glut followed by nothing.

Sowing and site

Put them in full sun with soil that drains, and sow the seed 25mm deep and about 50mm apart straight into the bed, because peas resent being transplanted and will do better direct sown than out of a punnet. Do not water them again until they come up, which is the bit that feels wrong and is the main reason pea seed rots. Peas like a soil that is not too acidic, so a bed that has had a bit of garden lime through it a couple of months earlier suits them. Birds will take the seedlings the moment they appear, so a bit of netting or some mesh over the row for the first fortnight saves the lot.

Give them something to climb

Climbing snow peas will go to 2 metres given the chance, so put the support in before you sow rather than trying to thread it through later. Garden stakes with string run between them, a timber trellis, or wire mesh against a fence all work, and what matters is that the tendrils have something thin enough to actually grab. Getting them up off the ground is also the best mildew prevention there is, because air moving through the foliage keeps the leaves dry.

Feeding, and the mistake worth avoiding

Peas fix their own nitrogen out of the air with the help of bacteria on their roots, so feeding them a nitrogen-rich fertiliser gives you a magnificent green plant with hardly any pods on it. What they want instead is potash, which drives flowering and pod fill, plus a seaweed tonic if they look like they have had a hard week. Mulch over the root zone keeps the soil moisture even, and even moisture is what stops the pods going tough.

Powdery mildew, which will arrive eventually

The white dusty film on the leaves towards the end of the season is powdery mildew and it is the thing that ends a pea crop. You can slow it down with spacing, with a trellis and by watering at the base in the morning rather than over the top in the evening. Once it is well in, the honest answer is to pick what is left, pull the plants out and cut the roots off at ground level so the nitrogen nodules stay in the soil for whatever goes in next.

Picking

Pick snow peas flat, while the pod is still translucent and you can only just see the peas as bumps inside, because a day or two later the pod goes fibrous. Pick every second day once they start, since a pod left to mature tells the plant its job is done and slows everything else down. Aphids will cluster on the growing tips, and a hard blast with the hose most mornings deals with them without a spray.

Shop related products

• Brunnings Potash Power 2.5kg. For flowering and pod fill rather than leaf.
• Brunnings Garden Lime 3kg. Sweeten the bed a couple of months before you sow.
• Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11kg. Mulch to keep the soil moisture even.
• Seasol Seaweed Concentrate 1L. A tonic after a cold snap or a hot spell.

Did you know we stock snow pea seed in the shop along with sugarsnap, Greenfeast, telephone and dwarf pea, plus garden stakes from 900mm to 1.8m and treated pine trellis for them to climb. The seed is not on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.

More from the garden centre

The seed, the stakes and the mulch all come out of the garden centre, and if you tell us when you are hoping to be picking we will tell you when to get the seed in.

Keep reading

• The ultimate guide to growing climbing beans with ease
• How to grow vegetables that are perfect for the South Australian climate
• Seven secrets to growing crunchy carrots in any soil

I eat about a third of my snow peas standing at the trellis, which does make the harvest figures look worse than they are.

Candeece