by Lisa Giroday, Sandra Lopuch and Sam Philips | Remember how smart you felt as a child when you asked someone if they thought peas were a fruit or vegetable and then smugly told them that they were actually a “legume”? Everyone has a childhood memory that involves peas, whether it’s the meditative act of shelling them or marvelling over a huge mountain of them at the farmer’s market and being tasked to pick a bag of the most plump ones to take home. Peas it seems, have few foes. And how could they? They’re got a sweet track record.

When can you plant them? When it’s still kind of cold in the spring, and again before it starts to cool off again come late summer. While having a giant overload of peas and pea shoots isn’t the worst thing to have in your garden (a little olive oil and your choice of herbs make for an amazing stir fry) it’s best to successionally plan and plant peas so that you have an abundance of both pods and tips through the entire season. Plant a section of your trellis in March, April and May and then again in July and August for a Fall harvest. Don’t be afraid to plant them close together, as these guys know how to climb over and around one another and don’t really care for personal space. Always try to take advantage of those last two Fall plantings at the end of the Summer – you’ll thank us when it’s become sweater weather and you’re still gorging on delicious fresh peas off the vine.

Peas get by with a little help from their friends….like inoculant, a pea seed’s bestie. Before planting, pop the seeds in a jar with a cup of water and a large spoon full of inoculant, a brown powder made up of bacteria that helps kick start the nitrogen party that is the life of a pea. It’s called Rhizobia, and it’s also found naturally in most garden soils but tends to be less active in cool, damp climates like ours, so a little boost, like a cup of coffee in the morning, is always a good idea!

So other than being delicious, why would we plant peas? They could be categorized as an environmentally-friendly food because of their beneficial and gentle effects on the soil they occupy. Being a “nitrogen fixing” plant, they take nitrogen from the air and convert it into a more useable form for their buddies sharing the soil, making it less necessary to fertilize. They’re also often used as cover crops because their root systems are so shallow and break down easily while also nourishing the soil. They’re a great rotational crop, keeping soils healthy and pests to a minimum.

Who do peas like to hang out with in the garden? They’re friends with pretty much everyone except for the allium, or onion family, so keep those separate, but feel free to pair them up with everything from herbs and brassicas to roots like carrots and radish, hot plants like cukes and tomatoes, and, of course, their cousin, the bean. Don’t forget to maximize your vertical space and seed peas anywhere you have space for them, thus creating walls of green where there might not have been green before.

THE VICTORY GARDENS ARCHIVE

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Victory Gardens is a team of local urban farmers for hire. Lisa, Sandra and Sam help transform tired or underused residential and commercial green spaces into food producing gardens. Their goal is to challenge the way communities use space and to participate in the change needed to consume food more sustainably. For the rest of the growing season, they’ve hooked up with Scout to share some cool tips and tricks on how to get the best from of our own backyards.