See the Almanac’s Pea Growing Guide for more information about sowing, growing, and harvesting. It bears a little later but has purple pods that will look great in a veggie platter or salad and it has lovely two-tone flowers as well.īetter get my shovel ready for the next load of poor man’s fertilizer that is headed my way. This year it will be all ‘Super Sugar Snap’ for me and maybe I will try ‘Sugar Magnolia’ for a touch of color. The super variety really was better! The peas were ready to harvest much earlier and delivered a higher yield than the regular ‘Sugar Snap.’ Plus, all the pods were the fat crunchy ones we have come to love. Since I am always skeptical of anything claiming to be an improvement, last year I planted half the bed with regular ‘Sugar Snap’ and half with ‘Super Sugar Snap’. Because of this lack of reliable seed stock, many companies have discontinued ‘Sugar Snap’ in favor of other “improved” varieties. ![]() The past few years, no matter where I source my seeds from, my plants yield as much as 30% snow peas mixed with the snap peas. If you are a fan of ‘Sugar Snap’ peas like me, you might have noticed that the seeds have not been growing true to type. Remove the “strings” at the end many snap peas varieties have the strings removed now. (Snow peas are the flat ones.) With snap peas, the whole pod is eaten and has a crunchy texture and very sweet flavor. Sugar snap peas are a cross between garden peas and snow peas. Don’t worry about sticking each little seed with a needle, you only need to moisten the seeds and roll them in it before planting. Easy-peasy. Most garden centers and seed catalogs sell it just be sure to get the one specifically meant for peas and beans. You can aid this process by inoculating the seeds with rhizobial bacteria before you plant them. ![]() Peas can be a little picky about germinating. Peas actually don’t need this extra nitrogen boost since as a legume they can take nitrogen directly from the air with the help of nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their roots. The ideal time for planting peas is about 4-6 weeks before the last frost. French peasants believed that a spring snow was as beneficial to the garden as a coating of manure and old-time farmers took it a step further, plowing a spring snowfall under to capture all its goodness. ![]() Since in the spring most of the ground has thawed it is able to absorb the meltwater rather than having it run off. Falling snow absorbs ammonia from the air which breaks down when the sun melts the snow, releasing a small amount of nitric acid into the soil. There actually is some truth to this bit of gardening lore.
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