Starting peas indoors

[ceara]

I have never started peas indoors before, but doing it this year!

So when should I sow? Our guaranteed (most years) frost free time is around the first week of June. Right now we are averaging +3 Celsius during the days and hovering around 0 to -3 at night. Snow is about half melted in the front lawn now, but then again it's a south facing slight slope and is always melted earlier than the rest of the areas around the house.

Should I start them indoors now?

How long will it take them to grow to about 3-4 inches and be planted outside? I know nothing about the time table of how fast peas grow. If I start them now and plant out in early May, is that OK?

I have a brand new floating row cover as well and could probably use that.

I have all tall varieties of peas this year. Well I also have a good sized bag of bush peas but they will be direct planted outdoors later. But the ones I want to start early are all supposed to achieve a height of 5 to 7 feet.

I need to get more seeding mix, any recommendations? Usually I just get ProMix.

Oh and also I want to start sweet corn indoors this year for the first time. Any other year we direct planted outdoors when it was warm still did not give us a decent crop. When should I start those?

Got some pole beans too that I am growing out to make more seed to help out someone increase their stock. Was planning on sowing those indoors too.

[stratcat]

Hi, Ceara.

Had to look through journals for my indoors pea experience.

On 27 April, 2005, I planted Dwarf Telephone Peas in peat strips. Think I used Hoffman soilless starting mix. In three days I saw the first one sprouting.

5 May I set them out in my cottage garden after first peeling the bottom from the strips. Don't think I had to cover them from frost. They're a hardy vegetable. In the January thaw of 2008 I had a few volunteer peas that had sprouted!

My last frost date is around the end of May. This year I sowed my Dwarf Telephone Peas outside on 25 March and I see one coming up today. Tonight is slated to be 23F (-5C). Not going to cover it and see what happens.

Seems like the peas grew quite fast in the house. Looks like in eight days they were ready to go. Just made it up as I went and got a crop.

Haven't started those other two indoors.

Crockett's Victory Garden from the '70's mentions starting corn in six-packs 10 days before it's time to set them out. Handle carefully so as not to disturb the rootball.

Hope this helps.

john

[grungy]

Hi Ceara,
Our last frost is generally May 4th, the old timers around here plant between the 10th and 15th of April and have great crops. So since you are a month later on your last frost date, I would try planting them about the 5th - 10th of May. Plant them in paper pots which will give you about 2-3 weeks before you have to transplant them out and you won't have to disturb the roots as you plant them pot and all. Works for corn too. Remember that the paper pots should be at least two full layers thick. (Three is better, because wet paper is not the toughest thing going.

[ceara]

Wonderful!

Thank you for the replies!

Guess I will wait a little bit longer before starting them. We're going to be planting a LOT direct-seeded this year but I wanted to start the more rare tall types indoors to make sure the slugs don't have a feast.

I will be doing lots and lots of canning this year. Finally got a pressure cooker!

[silverleaf]

Mine have been out a couple of weeks. Our last frost is at the beginning of May, but I have some fleece to chuck over if necessary, and all my books say March for peas is fine. I planted them out after they'd been inside for about 10 days - the tallest (Golden Sweet) was about 4 inches but the smallest (Waverex) only an inch or so. The Golden Sweet are at least twice as tall already.

A quick Google tells me that peas will be fine down to 28F/-2C. 28-20F they'll suffer damage but survive.

If there's snow, they'll survive 10F or even 5F.

[bluelacedredhead]

I remember reading the Editorial page in OG magazine during the Mike McGrath era. He said he planted peas in Philadelphia sometime in February or March and then more snow came.
They came up very early, like early April I believe, when nature said spring was just around the corner. So I say go for it! Never mind starting indoors; just plant.

I started a few Dwarf Peas indoors but they are to be grown in containers. And they weren't two days germinating. They are ready for Spring.

[silverleaf]

I tried direct sowing last year, but absolutely nothing happened. I guess mice/birds found them, as we have loads of both.

No way I was risking my precious purple podded peas like that! One of my first seed saves - I got 20 seeds given to me in the middle of summer last year and so they were sowed really late (mice got some of them too), I only got about 80 seeds at the end of it.

I guess it would be fine with peas you have loads of, or if you don't have mice.

[ceara]

Yes that's the plan. Regular peas will be direct-sown. But there are some heirlooms, trials and others marked for seed stock increase I want to make sure don't get eaten by either slugs or critters. My mighty hunter cat named Linx can take care of voles and such with ease.

But at any rate I have to wait a bit more because the area where I want the peas to go are still covered by over a foot of snow - the spot is in an area where the snow blower moved a lot of snow. Until we get some decent temperatures it will be at least a couple of weeks before I can start playing in dirt outside.

[canadamike]

I have started peas indoors in the past, 500 or so last year. It was my ''it's the last time I try this one '' year .

It realy was. Here, the season change can be abrupt, but winter colds almost always come back to haunt you, I suspect it is as gradual as elsewhere, even if our temperature might be a bit colder, but it is these bouts of winter coming back with a vengeance taht ruin the fun.

And they do happen. 2 pea plants living out of 500 is not enough to my taste, and it is always more or less like that. And I can't even pretend they are more cold resistant as 1/8 of an inch deeper can make the difference.

Of course I could plant them deeper, but then where would I find some valuable gain ?

In an urban set up, where one has time to baby anything, I would do it like crazy. But not on a farm, with all the work going around.

Funny, I was yesterday reflecting on how incredibly productive my little 20 x 30 or so garden was 20+ some years ago. I often feel like an idiot today looking at my harvest and all that space.

Then I paused, and reflected on the fact that these two arms were alone doing all that.

For a moment, I really missed the square foot garden where everything could be so passionately nurtured, like a privileged baby given all the chances in the world, and I missed it like I miss my Félix being a baby and secretly coming to join me in my bed at night.

Like if those days were gone. In thruth, they are not. I do more than I ever did, and at 50 I am only starting to do really more.

But I tend to see life in the scope of opportunity, and it dawned on me that somewhere between these small gardens that can only provide bountiful treasures for a while and a huge place like I have, there is a middle ground of incredible opportunity for people to meaningly grow a significant portion of their diet, and that makes for a lot of new HGers to get, people who will become highly skilled with all the help we can give and will give.

And that this can be the way of the future. Not that it could be, I sure think it could, but that it can be

Oh well, I felt like saying it...

[grunt]

You are absolutely right Michel, it can be. We have not quite an acre of land here, and most of the garden so far has gone to growing tomatoes for seed for the seed bank. This year the tomatoes get cut back a bit, and corn, bean, melons, and squash get added to the list. We also grow the common garden veggies, onions, carrots, potatoes, beets,lettuce, peppers, etc. Seldom do we buy any vegetables, unless we have a storage accident, and run out before the replacements get planted. A few more "exotic" grains and veggies will eventually get added to the list over the next few years, and we will fine tune things so that we don't have the losses, and do manage to get things done quicker, easier and better (because the garden making will be finished).
I am fortunate to be able to put in the time I do in the garden, but I don't know how someone would be able to do it, and hold a full time job as well.
We aren't self sufficient, and likely never will be, but that is not the aim of what we do anyway. I do like to see how close I can come to it, but only if it doesn't get in the way of enjoying what I do. We here are all extremely fortunate that we can "play" at what is, for most of the world, a deadly serious endeavor. I know that there are a good number of the posters here, who make their livings from what they do on the soil, and I have to take my hat off to them, but they are not the ones you were speaking about. Our parents and grand parents know all about what difference a small piece of land can make to the ability to survive tough times. I am a little afraid that there is going to be a new generation find that out again, and most of them are not equipped to do so, unless we step up and help them get going.
And I am wandering and babbling again, as I usually do, so I'll sign off.
Cheers
Dan

[ceara]

Well I figure I have the time, since I'm just a housewife with no kids. Plus when we have to spend 6 months out of the year stuck indoors, I really like to be out as much as possible while the weather is nice.

[silverleaf]

Last year was my first year of "proper" veg growing (I'd grown squash and herbs and tomatoes and a few other things before), so I didn't get everything right. I have two raised beds, both 6m x 1.2m, and a few large pots, but that was enough that we didn't have to buy veggies at all from June to September. 24 square feet plus one large pot of potatoes gave us enough that we only started buying potatoes again in February!

So yeah Michel, even with a small garden it's entirely do-able. Now I have some varieties that will provide me with winter veg, I'm hoping to produce even more of my own food. And one of my aims is to encourage other people to grow food as well. I gave my spare seed potatoes to a woman my boyfriend works with last year - she'd never grown anything before and really enjoyed it, so I'll provide her with some seeds this year as well.

[PatrickW]

On the subject of starting peas indoors, it depends of course why you're doing it, but a good alternative can be to simply sprout them in several layers of paper towels first.

Here the problem is mice eat the seeds, and they can rot in cold wet ground. Apparently all that's necessary to keep mice from eating them is for the seed to have germinated, and of course they won't rot in the ground if they are starting to grow.

I tried this for the first time this year, and it worked really well.

[mnjrutherford]

I've had a time with peas here but I think I will finally get a decent crop this year although I've had to replant several times. SweetPea flowers on the other hand can be planted MUCH earlier! I thought that was pretty interesting.

[flowerpower]

I plant garden peas and annual sweet pea around the same time. Once the ground can be worked, in they all go.