FIMBY: Plant a pea patch for you and your garden

This is another installment on our Food in My Back Yard series, dedicated to edible gardening.

We’re now in pea planting season, that time of year when soil is still warm but the weather is noticeably cooler.

Those baby pea plants also benefit from autumn rain, like what we’re expecting this week. Peas need consistently moist soil to be their best.

Peas – and their showy cousin, sweet peas – will grow rapidly now, if you can get them to sprout.

That’s the trick with peas – getting them started. Peas have a tough outer coat that can prevent them from sprouting (good for long-term storage, but not for planting).

Give nature an assist. Before planting peas, gently edge each pea with a nail file. The idea is to create a little nick that the emerging sprout can use as an exit. Yes, it seems tedious and time consuming, but that helps the sprout break through the seed coat. (It would be a lot more work if you’re planting a whole field and not just a backyard patch or row.)

After the peas have been filed, wrap them in a damp paper towel and let them sit overnight. That moisture gives them a head start and they’ll sprout sooner. (You may even wait to plant them until you see the little root emerge, but make sure to keep the paper towel moist.)

Choose a sunny spot where the peas will get full sun all winter.

Plant peas 1 inch deep in loamy soil with good drainage (a must), but be stingy with the fertilizer. Peas are “nitrogen-fixing” plants; they have the ability to store nitrogen in their roots and tap into it as needed. If fed too much nitrogen (or manure), they’ll produce lush foliage but few actual peas.

That nitrogen-fixing attribute is also beneficial for your garden soil. Peas can help rejuvenate garden beds and help them be better next summer. (For it to have the most benefit, leave the pea roots in the soil next spring after the plants have finished producing.)

Once the peas are planted, keep the soil evenly moist. Peas love mulch; it keeps their roots warm and maintains that crucial soil moisture.

After they sprout, peas need support; they’re true climbers and should have a trellis, poles or cages so they can grow up. (If they don’t, they’ll crawl across the ground and produce few peas.) That upright growth is important for their pollination. Peas are self-pollinating and need that air flow around their blooms. Air flow also cuts down on fungal diseases such as powdery mildew.

Once peas start producing, keep picking. The more they’re harvested, the more pea plants will produce.

Before the first pods appear, peas still offer an edible crop – pea shoots. Those tender early tendrils and young leaves are an edible green, stir-fried or steamed.

(Stick to the young shoots. Older pea shoots are harder to digest. Don’t eat sweet pea leaves or shoots; they’re indigestible.)

Many pea varieties have edible pods, offering another early crop. Edible pod varieties (such as Sugar Snap) also have edible full-size peas if left on the vine. Snow peas are grown for their large pods with only small peas inside.

But English, shelling, garden or cottage peas (the ones you find in the freezer section) do not have edible pods.

Sugar Snaps are in fact a cross of snow peas and shelling peas, offering the best of both. Another plus: They can be eaten raw as well as cooked.

Plant now and expect to have peas in time for Valentine’s Day – or earlier.