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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jun 24, 2018 23:25:11 GMT -5
Agriculturally, I prefer to grow beans rather than peas. Because my garden is infested with pea we-evils that lay their eggs on the young seeds, and they eat the inside out of the seeds. I can kill them by freezing, but it takes a tremendous amount of care to harvest them, quickly, dry them quickly, and get them in the freezer. My customers don't want to buy dry peas with bugs in them. Pisum sativum is the only species I grow that has that problem. Peas are very productive for me, but I tend to not grow them because of the predator. It might be possible to grow pea seed without the weevils, if I planted them as a fall crop instead of a spring crop. But timing is tricky. If I harvest shelling, snap, or snow peas the weevils are not big enough for anyone to notice. But it's much easier to buy pea seed than to raise my own. However it's my policy to not buy seeds, so I more or less stopped working with peas. … resistance to pea weevil in a Pisum sativum× P. fulvum … scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://www.academia.edu/download/43186266/Genetic_analysis_of_pod_and_seed_resista20160229-17869-1rcd89m.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm38NG79x29mCB49XxFocfBoef8zsg&nossl=1&oi=scholarrI have a few limited seeds for P. Fulvum i requested again this year. I had some many years ago, but i did not know how to do crosses back then nor what use such a cross would do. I don't have pea weevil as far as i can tell, so it's not a problem for me, but that could always change. Seems P. Fulvum can be used as the pollen donor. Funny how that always works. The most domesticated parent can accept pollen from wild related species, but less so the other way around. |
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Post by diane on Jun 25, 2018 10:00:26 GMT -5
Could you and your neighbours agree not to plant peas for a few years so the weevils would all die of starvation?
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Post by ferdzy on Jun 27, 2018 16:28:55 GMT -5
Late to the party here, but:
From the consumer/culinary point of view, we like shelled green peas the best, with snap and snow peas also getting eaten in fair quantities. We mostly eat the shelled peas in the winter because we process them in large quantities and freeze them. We freeze some snap and snow peas too but they don't freeze quite so well as shelled peas so we are more likely to eat them fresh. The only coloured peas we are still growing are Sugar Magnolia and Golden Sweet. None of the others we have tried have had the flavour to justify continuing to grow them. The Golden Sweet are nice mixed with green snow peas, but I find them anemic looking on the plate by themselves.
Likewise, we freeze large quantities of Blue Lake green beans for the winter because they freeze well and we like the flavour, and are more likely to eat more adventurously yellow/purple/other green beans in the summer. For dried peas and beans, we grow an assortment of beans which get used in recipes according to the type of bean. I do tend to like white dry beans, I have to admit. They have a neutrality that lets them take the background to other flavours which makes them versatile. However, we grow some other beans that I really like too: a big Italian borlotti for instance.
We are just getting into Limas, not traditionally grown here. Also a few cow pea types, but again not traditionally grown or eaten around here. Broad (fava) beans are not really common either. I didn't grow up eating them, still don't, and I have rarely if ever seen them for sale.
From the point of view of gardeners, we like Strike and Knight peas. Specifically, they start producing in just under 60 days and are finished in 2 weeks. This allows us to do the pea freezing mentioned in the previous paragraph, then plant other dried beans or vegetables to follow them. Knight is the better pea of the two, we think, but it does take a few days longer. Then we grow longer season peas as well, the excess of which may get frozen but which are more for eating fresh. We trellis these later peas and mostly grow fairly tall ones, but we choose them to produce over a range of time.
We've grown some dried peas, but not a lot. Mostly in the traditional Canadian yellow or green, to make the traditional Canadian pea soup. I'd like to branch out more but space is an issue. Spanish Skyscraper gets planted some years. It's a very late pea so can get starchy if the weather is hot and dry. Fortunately in that case we can just leave it to dry and it's a decent soup pea.
We have bean anthracnose in the garden so number one criterion for all beans is a fairly high degree of resistance to it. I wanted to grow Flageolet beans but had to pull them out halfway through the season as they were in such terrible shape. The Lima and cow pea types are more resistant than the p. vulgaris, which is partly why we are growing them more.
I'm also interested in plant breeding so when crosses show up... I grow them out! There are a few interesting things coming along.
I don't mix varieties of peas or beans. They do have different requirements in cooking, or in the case of peas in particular being picked at the optimum moment, and I don't want to lose control of those requirements.
A few other thoughts on peas: modern peas have mostly been bred for processing requirements and looks. I get the processing requirements thing; it's the only thing that makes them commercially viable. They are one hell of a lot of work. We would eat 2 or 3 times as many shelled peas as we do, but damned if I'm giving up that much of my life to shelling the little buggers.
The looks thing is more peculiar. Marketers have convinced people that small, dark green peas are young and tender. It's true that any particular variety of pea is likely to to get larger and lighter as it ages. However, just because a pea is small and dark green does not mean it is good. When my MIL moved out she left a packet of peas in the freezer. We ate them at one meal and put the rest in the compost. They were beautiful! So small, so bright green! Also so starchy and tasteless. Still, it's going to be a hard sell to convince people that a large, pale pea is tender and tasty, even when it is.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jun 27, 2018 23:20:10 GMT -5
ferdzy, thank you! That was an excellent post. Just the kind i was looking for! And thank you to the others for tote thoughts and feedback as well. You've given me plenty to think about. In regards to pale [yellow] peas in particular, i agree, they become so much more pale as they mature that they just don't look as appetizing. I really am going to work hard on my yellow-x-orange cross because ive noticed that just at the same time as the yellow pods become pale the orange pods start developing color! If i can get the right recombination of both of those recessive genes i think i will have a stunning yellow-golden pea like no one has seen before! I think i can do it! There is some speculation that the orange color is linked to pod fiber, and if so perhaps i could only breed that into a shelling pea, which would be good for you and others who like them. But it might not be linked at all. Also the large podded peas won my taste test this year, and although they are green pods, they become just as translucent as a yellow podded pea as they mature and dry down. I have a few pea genetic tricks up my sleeve that i just don't know what to do with yet. For example, i have one trait that i've kept tight lipped about. I have a pea that has what looks to be pure black seeds. Much darker than even my darkest biskopens or purple passion peas. When i say black, i mean black. I Just don't know what to do with them. Perhaps as a soup pea? Perhaps as a novelty when combined with contrast, such as a yellow podded pea? Regardless, i find the pea genome to have plenty of cool genetic traits. Plenty to work with for a lifetime. I never intended to get so fascinated with peas, but Rebsie Faiholm, and others hooked me. I want to eventually get back to beans and corn, but you have to pick your battles (or projects) carefully and one at a time sometimes. I may attempt a fall crop of peas if i can plant them by mid july. But my pea harvesting is going rather slow.
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Post by steev on Jun 28, 2018 2:05:33 GMT -5
That black does sound exciting, if only from curiosity.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jun 29, 2018 7:40:01 GMT -5
That black does sound exciting, if only from curiosity. Indeed. |
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Post by ferdzy on Jun 29, 2018 19:14:50 GMT -5
Peas are strangely fascinating, aren't they? For something that has been studied for as long as the study of genetics has existed (!) they are very unruly, I find, and don't abide by the described rules nearly as well as you would think.
I have not had good success growing peas in the late summer/fall. It sounds so logical, but inevitably they get mildew. I have managed to grow them sufficiently well to get seed a few times in emergencies.
Do you have enough of the black peas to have cooked them? I would worry a bit about it turning strange colours as it cooks.
I am growing out 8 yellow when dry peas that showed up in St. Hubert, which is a traditional Canadian dry green pea, for green pea soup. I have at various times also grown out Zeiner's Gold, which I believe is a selection of Golderbse. I like the flavour of the yellow ones better, but the green ones produce at least half as much more. I am hoping for the flavour of the yellow peas and the productivity of the green ones. However, I am already perplexed - they are flowering already, at one foot high! The St. Hubert get to 5' or 6' and need trellising. Is it because it is so hot and dry? But everything else is taller and growing well. You just never know what you are going to get with peas.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jun 29, 2018 23:31:55 GMT -5
No, i just got them. Never grown them. Before.
I have seen heavy heat and drought affect peas by stunting them, but every variety is different.
Peas really are unpredictable sometimes.
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Post by reed on Jun 30, 2018 4:19:43 GMT -5
I have had peas that I planted early and looked good just stop growing when it turned hot and dry, even if I watered them. I think now days around here, they might also need some shade. I used to always grow peas but have about given up on them now in favor of a diverse bean collection.
I have a patch of mixed pole beans growing without supports, weeding or watering. Most all are blooming and some look pretty good, a lot definitely are stressed from lack of water. I'v largely given up on devoting too much space to specific kinds for specific purposes. I just call them survivor soup beans. I'll see at harvest if the ones grown that way before show up in higher proportion.
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 2, 2018 15:00:33 GMT -5
Yeah, I find the heat (85F+) stops peas in their tracks. The few that grew for me in this year's weird season have been bowled over by the heat wave.
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Post by walt on Jul 2, 2018 15:38:04 GMT -5
Snap peas are my favorite legume. I eat them in the garden as I pick them.
Soup beans are close second.
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Post by raymondo on Jul 17, 2018 5:26:33 GMT -5
Unlike most of my countrymen, I’m a real fan of dry beans. As a consumer, give me colours and patterns. As an eater, some I want to cook down to a mush, others I want tender but whole. As a grower, climbers (pole types) fare better than bush beans bug-wise so I grow a number of climbers. I still grow bush types but will often have to resow a few times until the bugs have had their fill!
I enjoy snap beans too. Those I grow are almost excusively climbers. My favourite is Rattlesnake. Colour not so important here. Once cooked they’re mostly green anyway.
Peas, yes. Love shelling peas. I like them large and sweet. I also enjoy both snows and snaps. Different colours, in pods, would be interesting but flavour is my main interest. I haven’t grown much in the way of soup peas but intend to do so. Pea shoots, great in a salad.
Broadbeans, hmmm, not really fussed. My farming partner grows lots as she loves them. Her husband shares my enthusiasm for them! I like using them dry to make hummus but I don’t grow any for that purpose.
Cowpeas for dry eating also a favourite. I grow a Nigerian one, Jan Wake, most often. I’ve tried a few over the years but our season is often too short to get any sort of decent crop. The Nigerian one is an exception, as is the Black-eyed Pea.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 19, 2018 17:22:16 GMT -5
Cowpeas for dry eating also a favourite. I grow a Nigerian one, Jan Wake, most often. I’ve tried a few over the years but our season is often too short to get any sort of decent crop. The Nigerian one is an exception, as is the Black-eyed Pea. This one might work for you as well. If they can plant it in May-June and harvest in August, it must be pretty short season. And I THINK they will ship to you. link |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jul 19, 2018 17:44:47 GMT -5
Cooking my first batch of grey peas. Will let you know how they turn out. Bikopens with a little bit of Anasazi dry beans. Cooking them like dry beans in a crockpot.
Figured since i'm growing so many grey peas and potentially trying to revive them into a trendy food that i probably should know how they taste and how to cook them.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jul 21, 2018 8:14:46 GMT -5
So i tried cooking biskopens in a crockpot like dry beans... it sorta worked.. i mean i didn't die, and they tasted okay, but they remained unusually whole, even more than beans that holds their shape. It was not my favorite. :/
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