Garden Plants: Snow Peas

I am a huge fan of snow peas.  In all my experience with plants, they are one of the easiest to grow.  I've tried several different brands and varieties.  The germination and harvest rates are amazing.  I can find nothing bad about growing snow peas.

Snow peas are a vining crop, therefore they benefit from some type of trellis system.  I've grown them successfully without any trellis, and they seem to grow fine.  They are just harder to harvest this way.  I have tried several different trelllis' in the past, but I found that using some type of string allows to them to hang on tighter.

The thing I really like about snow peas besides the ease of growth, is the rapid rate of growth.  After a long winter of not being able to work in my garden, seeing the fresh growth of snow peas is exciting.  I usually plant mine in early February, or right after I think the last frost has come and gone.  I have planted them, and the weather has gotten cold and nasty.  They still seemed to do alright.  I'll also plant them again in the fall.  The timing depends on how everything else in my garden is going, and what space I have left.  I've successfully planted them in last August, and again in September.  It all depends on your climate.  They will die quickly once the it starts to get hot. so getting them in the ground as soon or as late as possible is the only way to do it.

Snow Peas after two weeks

One last thing about snow peas, one thing I love about growing them is the benefits in the garden, besides the food that is, they are great at fixing nitrogen.  They don't need a deep root system, and I feel like that is beneficial if you are trying to create a garden spot out of clay.  I've never had to fertilize them, and they seem to have few pests.  Plus, I feel like since they are vining plants, they are easy to bury right back in the soil.