March 7, 2025 • 34 mins
Welcome to another episode of the Good Growing Podcast! Join horticulture educators Chris Enroth and Ken Johnson as they delve into the fascinating world of garden peas, Pisum sativum. Explore the rich history of garden peas, from their origins in ancient agriculture to their role in the development of modern genetics. Get practical advice on planting, caring for, and harvesting garden peas, including tips on soil preparation, spacing, and dealing with common pests and diseases. From childhood memories of canned and frozen peas to the joys of growing your own, this episode covers everything you need to know about these humble yet delightful vegetables.
Skip to what you want to know:
00:37 Hey Ken! What type of peas did we eat growing up? Canned, frozen, or fresh?
02:44 National Garden Bureau Plant of the Year - The Garden Pea
03:23 Is it time to plant garden peas in early March?
06:15 The history of the garden pea. Domestication
09:39 Why did humans pick the garden pea for domestication 10,000 years ago?
11:54 The dawn of a sweeter garden pea.
14:31 Talking about Gregor Mendel and the birth of modern genetics.
17:07 Growing garden peas
18:09 Shelling peas
19:03 Snow/Sugar peas
19:41 Snap peas
22:01 Growing requirements spacing, soil, trellising, etc.
24:16 What pea cultivars does Ken grow in his garden?
27:28 Using peas as a bioassay.
28:20 How deep do you plant pea seeds?
29:24 Garden pea problems
32:14 Thank yous and coming up next week.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris (00:06):
Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith the University of Illinois
Extension, coming at you from
Macomb, Illinois, and we havegot a great show for you today.
Oh, the thing that, you know, II remember as a kid, and today,
my kids seem to kind of rollthese things around on the
dinner plate. We're going to betalking about the garden pea.
(00:29):
And you know I'm not doing thisby myself. I am joined as always
every single week byhorticulture educator, Ken
Johnson in Jacksonville.
Hey, Ken.
Ken (00:37):
Hello, Chris. Did you have canned pea or frozen peas as a
kid?
Chris (00:42):
I will say 95% of the time, they were canned. 4% of
the time, they were frozen. Andthen 1% of the time, they came
out of the garden. And the 1% ofthe time is, like, I think it
it's more just because of theyield you get off of a pea plant
is not that great. So whenyou're splitting that amongst
(01:03):
five people, you're like, oh,everybody cut your pee in half
and share with your sister oryour who's next to you.
So The
Ken (01:11):
the Mickey Mouse cartoon? Yes. The James and the giant
beanstalk?
Chris (01:15):
Yes. Yeah. Or or Bob Cratchit did that in the, the
Scrooge McDuck version ofChristmas Carol. Yes.
Ken (01:24):
So we always had I was always we usually had canned
peas. So I did not like peasuntil I discovered frozen peas.
Yeah. Those are those are muchbetter, I think.
Chris (01:33):
They they they are much better. You know, we throw
frozen peas in, like, soups andstews and things like that, but
you don't really cook them thatlong. You throw them in the
last, like, five minutes justto, like, unthaw them. And, but
I I do like certain canned peas.I like I like the what do they
call, the very small or thepetite types of canned peas.
(01:57):
I think those are better thannormal, sized canned peas. So
those are my favorites.
Ken (02:05):
I don't think I've ever bought canned peas as an adult.
Chris (02:08):
So Come on over, Ken. We have canned peas quite a bit in
my house because I like them. II actually do like, canned peas
quite a bit. But, again, I likeI I will eat normal sized peas,
but I prefer the petite littleteeny tiny peas. I think they
just taste better.
But I put butter and salt andpepper and all that stuff on
(02:29):
them too.
Ken (02:30):
Oh, see. I eat them plain.
Chris (02:33):
There's see, that's the difference. You gotta add the
butter.
Ken (02:36):
Yeah. Doctor.
Chris (02:37):
Butter is the big thing.
Ken (02:38):
Yes. Every everything tastes good with butter.
Chris (02:41):
That's well, that's the philosophy in my house at least.
Well, Ken, so why are we talkingabout garden peas today? You
know, we've been doing theseplant of the years. So who in
the world has decided to namethe garden pea, the humble
garden pea as as the plant ofthe year this this year for
2025?
Ken (03:03):
This is another one of the the National Garden Bureau year
of fill in the blank. So thisweek just happens to be we're
doing peas. So I think it's, youknow, not necessarily why they
picked it, but, you know,encourage people to grow more
peas. And and it's a relativelyeasy, vegetable to grow, in my
opinion, anyway.
Chris (03:23):
Yeah. And timely. You know, we are breaking into March
now, and garden peas aresometimes one of the the earlier
things that you could plan outin the garden. I know,
typically, you have to have nonfrozen soil to do anything,
which right now, well, it wasnice and thawed out last week as
(03:45):
we had highs that were, like,not quite there, but 70 degree
mark was not that far off forus. And I was just like, man,
maybe I should start plantingthings and thought about peas,
you know, and possibly gettingpeas out in the ground.
But it it it got cold again, andthe soil is hard again with ice
on the top. So, not quite yet.But peas are a very early
(04:07):
season, cool season crop that wewould grow.
Ken (04:12):
Yeah. Typically, we're looking at soil temperatures
usually like mid forties. So,again, they'll depend on the
year, but a lot of times it's,you know, we get a warmer smell,
maybe March, usually sometime inearly April, at least in Central
Illinois. And there's a lot oftimes, at least when we're
planting bees, we're plantingthem in our garden.
Chris (04:32):
Yeah. And I I think that's probably a a a good guess
for a lot of, yards and andhomes and backyard gardens. And
just because there's there's alot of microclimates that also
occur in our residential spaces.But I do have a few spots
that's, like, south facingslope, and I'm so tempted to
(04:56):
just get started. So, you know,you need to tell me right now,
Kent.
Wait. Stop it. Don't do it.
Ken (05:02):
Or if you got enough seed, put some out there. And if they
don't grow, replant. Hey. We'restill probably a little I
haven't looked at the, theweather stations, but U of I
has, set up around the state tosee what the soil temperature
there, but I I can't imagineit's well, maybe they could be,
but I don't think it's gonna bewarm enough, especially looking
(05:24):
at the as we're recording thisTuesday, I think in
Jacksonville, they're callingfor potential snow tomorrow.
Flurries or snow.
Chris (05:34):
Well, winter is not done with us yet even though we are
in March, and I got spoiled bythat warm weather last week. So
yes. You know, Ken, you weresupposed to say don't do it. I
had this little devil on myshoulder saying plant your peas.
Go get some potatoes.
And then Ken pops up on theother shoulder like, why not?
Ken (05:54):
There's only one way to find out if you're gonna be
successful.
Chris (05:57):
That's right. Hey. I love it. It's such a daring gardening
move. I love it.
Yes.
Ken (06:03):
Yes. If if you don't wanna be disappointed, you probably
wanna wait a little bit.
Chris (06:06):
Okay. Well, thank you. Yes. There's there's that.
That's what I needed to hear.
So alright. Gotta avoid thatdisappointment. Yeah. Well, Ken,
I guess some backstory of thethe the humble garden pea. This
particular vegetable crop hasbeen with us pretty much since
(06:27):
the beginning of agriculture,kind of the charred remains,
kinda analyzing them chemicallyof, you know, ancient trash
pits, things that humans wouldwere been living at in ten
thousand years ago, they foundthe charred remains of of the
(06:50):
garden pea.
And, actually, when they look atthe the genetics of the peas
that we grow out in our gardenstoday, they found not one, but
two possible moments in humanhistory when we have tried to or
would try, when we diddomesticate the the garden pea.
(07:11):
And the particular, scientificname for this is pizum or pizum?
Pizum? Now we did this beforethe show. We we figured this
out.
Pizum sativum. So, yeah, we arethat's what we're talking about
today, pizum sativum.
Ken (07:33):
Yes. Because there's a lot of other honestly, a lot of it.
There's other plants that arecalled peas that are not, I
guess, quote unquote true peas.So we have, like, black eyed
peas, which is vigna. As yousaid, it's actually a type of
like a bean.
So peas and beans are related.But black eyed peas are vigna,
(07:53):
the genus vigna, which is abean. Mhmm. Much like sweet
peas. I'm not sure what genesthey are.
But that's not what you wannaeat.
Chris (08:02):
Yeah. Yeah. Don't eat so sweet peas, that is the the
ornamental flowering, type of ofpea, fabaceae plant. However,
the seeds of that particularsweet pea are, toxic. So I I
think even if we in the thepreceding the the part of the
(08:25):
show here, if you hear usmention, like, sweet pea, I will
probably be talking more aboutthe sweeter garden pea.
But in case I misspeak laterhere, yeah, but we do wanna
distinguish, like, sweet pea,that is a more ornamental, you
know, landscaping, type of peathat we are not wanting to eat.
Ken (08:48):
Yes. According to the Wikipedia, sweet pea is a thyrus
odoratus native to Europe.
Chris (08:55):
It's a fun little cottage garden plant, flowering. It dies
back to the ground every year,kinda pops up here and there.
And, yeah, we we have it, hereactually at our food donation
garden here in Macomb. And it'shere because the old house where
our garden was built has sweetpeas growing around it. And even
(09:18):
with all of the demolition andand stuff that happened, the
fact that we're growing ongravel, on an old gravel
driveway, we still have sweetpea vines that that pop up here
and there every so often.
Ken (09:31):
Cool. Yeah. But don't eat them.
Chris (09:33):
Yep.
Ken (09:34):
Sweet peas are another another, topic for another day.
Chris (09:38):
That's right. Yes. Not today. Today, we're talking
about the garden pea. I guesswhen we kind of examine why why
was this so desirable, why wasthis selected, one interesting
little tidbit that I, as I wasgoing through this, and I think
it plays into the garden peas oftoday and and why we like them,
(10:00):
is that the the seeds, which iswhat we typically think of when
we think of seeds or or peas,the seeds within the pod, that
pod is, it's non dehiscent,which means and and dehisence is
the when the pod splits open tothen disperse the seed.
So if you think in your headlike a milkweed pod, milkweed
(10:23):
pods, once that seed is ripe andready to be dispersed, that pod
splits open and that seeddisperses out. The pea pod is is
nondehiscent, and so that meansit doesn't split open. And when
you have a pod like that, doesdoesn't split open. You know, if
you're a a an ancient humanlooking to bring about the dawn
(10:44):
of agriculture, you see a nondehiscent pod and you think, oh,
I can store this in in the pod,and it's protected better than
the other seeds or other wildplants I'm finding out there
where the pods are splittingopen and, you know, insects or,
mice or something might be ableto get to them easier. And so,
(11:06):
they kind of credit the thatability of the pod to stay
closed even when those pea seedsare ready as one of the reasons
why it was probably selected asone of the first crops that we
had out there.
And, you know, peas, the gardenpea being you know, one of the
first things they found, rightalongside was something like
like wheat, or beans. You know?Some you know, those very
(11:28):
earliest crops out there that wewould have been using. And it's
been with us, yeah, since thebeginning when we started
growing food, going from thathunter gatherer style over to
our, you know, we wanted to beable to sit down, settle down,
build larger communities. Thatrequires agriculture, and here
came the garden pea.
Ken (11:47):
It looks like you wanted to be domesticated.
Chris (11:50):
Exactly. Isn't that interesting? So there there this
there's more to this, Ken. Idon't know if you meant to prime
me on that one or not, but butso, one of the interesting
things is that the garden peathat we know, it's sweeter. You
(12:13):
know?
It has a sweeter flavor. So kindof more in the beginning,
though, it was more of thatrounded, more starchier pea. But
it wasn't until around thesixteen hundreds that a
particular genetic mutationproduced a wrinkled but sweeter
(12:35):
garden pea. And it was it that'sit's one of those botany of
desire things where, like, diddid did we pick the plants or
did the plants pick us kind ofthing? But, but, essentially,
this random genetic mutation inthe sixteen hundreds gave rise
to kind of the sweeter gardenpeas that we enjoy today.
(13:00):
And it it is really just the thefact that this genetic mutation
is a pea plant that hasdifficulty building branched
starch molecules. It just doesnot have that enzyme that allows
it to build starch moleculesthat are that are branched, that
are more complex. It has youknow, you can build starch just
(13:23):
like a like a single line oftext. But if you add in this
branching enzyme for starch, youcan now build these just just
big old elaborate webs ofstarch. And that's what the
older, kinda common that fieldpea had, a more starchy field
pea.
But it was this genetic mutationthat where it actually lost
that, which allowed instead ofthat sugar being converted to
(13:45):
starch, it now just it just thatsucrose
Ken (13:48):
I I
Chris (13:49):
think the the glucose and the fructose then just got
converted to sucrose. And sothat's that's why the the
wrinkled peas, that's whythey're wrinkled is because
they're not starchy on theinside. Sugar is more polar, and
so it draws more water into thatpea seed, which stretches that
seed coat. But when that water,dries out, it then that's that
(14:12):
seed shrinks and that seed coatis wrinkled. But, again, whereas
the the the field pea, is a morestarchy one, there's not as much
water in there, and it doesn'tstretch that seed coat, so it
remains rounded.
So the the peas are sointeresting. I think you can do
so much neat stuff with peas.Yeah.
Ken (14:31):
And can we give people flashbacks to high school
biology? Let's do it. And andMendel.
Chris (14:36):
Let's do it. Yes.
Ken (14:40):
So, yeah, I guess I've been basically, our whole concept of
genetics kinda started with withthe Gregor Mendel and looking
at, how, Dow genes are passed onand looking at using garden peas
as an example. Was it looking atflower color? Was it the
wrinkled and non wrinkled peas?
Chris (14:57):
Wrinkled, non wrinkled green peas, yellow peas. Yeah.
Mhmm.
Ken (15:03):
And that kinda laid the groundwork for our our
understanding of of genetics, aswe know it. All our our punnett
squares. Mhmm. All of that allthat fun stuff.
Chris (15:13):
Taking all your alleles and things and and comparing
your, in your Punnett square andand and how everything lines up.
Is it dominant or is itrecessive? And, what manifests
itself when you get these twoparents with these two traits
together? Because before that,before Mendel, everyone was just
like, wow. You just get twoparents and you take all their
(15:36):
genetics, which I don't evenknow if they knew of genetics
that back then.
You you put it all in a a jarand you shake everything up and
you just throw it out andeverything blends together. But
then, Mendel showed that it'snot really a blending. We're not
really blending. That's notwhat's happening. It's these
certain alleles and these genesthat get activated, and some are
dominant, some are recessive.
And, you're not just puttingstuff in a blender and mixing it
(15:59):
up. I mean, kind of, yes, butbut no. There's, like, things
that are that are beingactivated and things that are
going dormant.
Ken (16:07):
And I've it's been a while since I've read about this, but
it rather, you know, it's kindalucky they picked peas because
it's relatively straightforward.Whereas a lot of other plants,
that's not necessarily the caseMhmm. And stuff. So they they
picked the right crop to lookat.
Chris (16:26):
I think so. Yes. And and maybe it was because of the, you
know, there's the peas are justeasier to handle. They're a big
seed. And I think it wassomething like he in his
experiments as he's trying tofigure out this this kind of
dawn of genetics, he grewsomething like 30,000 pea
plants.
Like and I I'm I'm sure in inmodern agricultural research,
(16:50):
like, oh, that's nothing. Butwhen you're a a Hungarian monk
Ken (16:57):
in
Chris (16:57):
in their mid eighteen hundreds, that's a lot of work
for one person.
Ken (17:04):
Yes. Yeah. I can't imagine doing all that.
Chris (17:07):
Well, we covered a lot of the backstory about the garden
pea, you know, where it camefrom, which I guess it's it's
more of a it's more of a MiddleEastern, native, plant. And,
again, it sits right there atthe dawn of agriculture. And so
(17:28):
but what if we wanna fastforward and and grow our own
piece of history in our yard,and grow a a garden pea? There's
this is some it's simple, as Kensaid, but there's also some
different types of peas outthere that have developed over
the generations that humans havebeen working with these. So,
(17:50):
Ken, as as one of the solegrowers of garden peas on this
podcast you know, we're fiftyfifty on this podcast, by the
way.
I I have not grown garden peasas an adult. Ken has. Ken, what
garden peas are there are outthere? What do you grow?
Ken (18:09):
Yeah. So when we're talking about peas, we're growing in our
gardens, typically, we dividethem into to three different
groups. So we got garden orEnglish peas. So these are like
or shelling peas. So these arethe ones, like, if you're buying
cayenne peas or frozen peas,these are the types of peas,
that are gonna be grown.
You'll let those the seeds,fully develop. They're they're
still immature typically whenyou're harvesting them, but
they're kind of that full size.Then you're harvesting them.
(18:33):
Usually, you wanna use thoserelatively quickly because those
those sugars will break downkinda like sweet corn. So if
you're using garden Englishshelling peas, you can use them,
fresh.
You'll kinda harvest that dayusing that the day you harvest
or freeze them or or processthem in some way to kinda retain
that that sugar. Again, the likeyou mentioned, the wrinkly ones
(18:54):
are just gonna be sweeter.They're not wrinkly. They're
gonna be a little more starchy.And that may be something that
you'd be using, like, in a soup,or something like that.
There are, snow or sugar peas.And this is the ones that you
would see a lot of times in,like, stir fry, the the thin
potted ones. The seeds aren'treally developed. They're still
flat. And and you're usingthose, again, fresh steamed
(19:18):
cooked.
There are a variety of differentways you can use those. If those
seeds do start getting bigger,that pod will get fibrous. You
can still eat it, but, again,you're gonna be doing a lot more
chewing. It gets a littlestringy. So that may be when
those seeds and and those snowor sugar peas get big, then
you're probably using those morelike a shelling pea, English pea
(19:38):
instead, instead of eating thatpot and everything.
Now, then there are, snap peas.So these, a lot of times we're
harvesting those when the seedsare about the size of a BB. So
they're starting to develop, butthey're not fully developed. And
again, these are thicker,walled, cells or skins, whatever
you want to call them. Andagain, you're eating these, a
(20:00):
lot of times raw, salads.
You can cook them like snap, orsnow peas, as well, or you can
shell them as well. So they're alittle more, I guess, multi use.
Sometimes you see them as stirfry as well, the the more, I
guess, tubular, type pea pods,not the flat ones, which would
be the snow peas. So they'retypically the the three groups.
(20:22):
And when it comes to what you'regonna what you wanna grow in
your garden, you know, kindathink about how you're gonna use
the peas.
I would what what I grow in mygarden are gonna be the the snow
or the snap. I don't really haveany interest in in growing peas
and having to shell them. It'smuch easier to just buy a bag of
peas or a can of peas, for thatpurpose. So and we're growing,
(20:43):
you know, the the snow aresnapping. And we'll get them I
mean, usually when we'reharvesting, the kids are
helping.
We don't really none of themreally make it inside. They're
being eaten as they'reharvested, and stuff, which I
can't really complain aboutbecause they're eating their
vegetables.
Chris (20:57):
That was my childhood guardian experience with with
peas, especially was, you eatthem as you as you harvest them.
And then we we did do some ofthe the shelling peas. And I
would sit at the dining roomtable, and I would put, you
know, in an old ice creambucket. And, you know, I'd spend
(21:21):
hours working on maybe a half acup worth of fresh garden peas.
But, yeah, you you kinda get inthe you get, like, a a rhythm or
you you figure out how to kindaquickly pop open that shell, zip
out the the the peas insidethere and, you know, toss the
the the shell, the pod, and thenkeep going.
So, I'd I'd still I I wish itdidn't take so much to to grow
(21:47):
your own shelled peas, like yousaid, Ken. It's just easier to
go buy it at the store.
Ken (21:52):
Yeah. You have kids now. Put them to work.
Chris (21:55):
Well, that will last all of five minutes, but we'll see.
Yeah. It's worth a try. Right?
Ken (22:01):
Yeah. So then when it comes to actually growing your peas
and once you've picked, what youwant, these peas are, you know,
not that they're small plants,but you don't have to have very
wide spacing. A lot of timesit's like an inch, inch or two
in between plants. So you canplant them pretty dense. Most of
them are probably gonna wantsomething to grow up.
So I grow we have a fence aroundour garden. I just grow it up
that fence. Some sort oftrellising, that you're gonna
(22:24):
grow up, they'll send out thetendrils and and climb.
Sometimes you may need to helpthem find it a little bit. You
can grow them up strings,however you wanna do it.
But find some way to let themgrow up. Otherwise, a lot of
times they'll they'll growtogether, and then it can become
kind of a mess, trying to pickthem with they all, you know,
start growing on top of eachother, and mixed. Like, you
(22:45):
know, typical garden soil, goodorganic matter, they do like you
do want the soil to drain,though, because you can get
some, like, Fusarium, which isrelatively common disease that
we see in that, lower leaveswill start yellowing and plants
will decline. A lot of times yousee that in in soil that does
not drain as well. So keep keepthat in mind.
(23:05):
As far as, you know, when welland since, peas are legume or
the bean family, they have thethe, the rhizobium, the
symbiotic relationship with thebacteria in the soil. So they
can take atmospheric nitrogen,convert that into a plant
available form. Some places thatyou can buy that inoculant, coat
(23:28):
the seeds. And that typically,you'd moisten the seeds, mix
that in the inoculant so youhave that bacteria, present. If
you've grown peas and beans inthe plant, you probably already
have in the past, you probablyalready have that in your soil.
So I wouldn't say that's anabsolute necessity, to get that.
I we never get it for ours, andour peas grow, just fine. But
that is an option out there,that that some places will sell,
(23:50):
especially that you see it moreon the online. I've never really
seen that available in stores.But if you're buying them
online, that may be somethingthat's suggested, to grow with
it.
And then, yeah, then dependingon on the cultivar you're
growing, it could be thirty,forty days, seventy days. It
just kinda depends on thecultivar before, we start seeing
(24:14):
a harvest. So talk about kind ofthe three, pea cultivars that we
grow in our garden anyway. Soone that we grow is called sugar
magnolia. So this is a purplepotted bean inside the purple
yeah.
The pot is purple. The inside ofthe pod and, fruit or the the
(24:35):
seeds itself are green. This isa seventy day. So it's and it
grows maybe up to seven feettall. So this one is is much
bigger.
I think it's got a little bitbetter heat tolerance, than
other types of peas, which isgood since it's a seventy day.
It's gonna take a little bitlonger. And it's gonna start
warming up. And typically, whenit starts getting warmer, peas
will start declining becausethey are, cool season crops. So
(25:00):
that's one we're growing.
If and, you know, if we get ouracts together in the fall, we
can plant that in late summerand then use that as a fall
harvest as well. And then we twoothers that we grow are little
Snow Pea Purple and little SnowPea White. So these are are
smaller peas. They only getabout two feet tall, for the the
purple, about 40 inches tall forthe white. And then it can be
(25:23):
because they are smaller, theycan be grown in pots.
So if you don't have a place,you could put them in ground.
The these these would be goodoptions for that. The the
purple, as, like, the nameimplies, has purple flowers on
it. And then again but it's gotthe the green pods, and green
beans. That's fifty to fiftyfour days.
That's That's a little bitquicker harvest. So, again,
(25:45):
we're planting these in thespring. We can plant them again
in the fall. A little moreforgiving because it doesn't
have as long of a a growingseason or you won't have to wait
as long to harvest. And thelittle Snowpy white, this is
thirty days.
This is a pretty quick,turnaround, which is why we grow
this one. Both of these are arethe, the Snowpy, types, again,
(26:09):
as the name implies. So we're sothis one here, we get a really
quick turnaround. So, basically,we've got our our snow little
Snowpy white will come in. We'llget a harvest or so off of that,
and the purple starts coming in,and the magnolia comes in.
You can get multiple harvestsoff of these. But this way, we
kinda we've got a longer harvestwindow, by growing these three
different cultivars. And, again,they can all be planted again
(26:32):
late summer, early fall for fallharvest.
Chris (26:36):
I I think maybe I will get started in peas this year.
I'm gonna go with the shorter,maturity one. I just think that
for me, that probably makes moresense, especially if you're able
to rotate in anything in thatspot. Do you rotate, like, warm
season crops where your springpeas were? Or are they there
(26:56):
long enough that you there's notenough time or the window isn't
quite right?
Ken (27:02):
We could, but since we grow them up the fence on our ground,
we're we're really not growinganything, up against that
anyway. But if, you know, wecould probably follow those up
with, tomatoes or peppers,something like that. And since
they are a little bit smaller,you know, we could probably
plant, you know, intercrop that,plant those tomatoes or peppers
in between those plants, whilethey're still while they're
(27:24):
while they're finishing up andthen let those grow up, after
that.
Chris (27:28):
This reminds me, the only I have grown peas, but the only
thing I used them for was a abioassay, which is a a method to
determine if you might have,like, a, like, a herbicide
contaminated soil or something.You know? You you take a sample
of that soil, you throw some peaseeds in there, and you take a
(27:50):
normal potting soil, and youthrow pea seeds in there. That's
your control, and you just seeif there's any stunting or
malformation of your of yourseedlings. So I I've never grown
them I've never grown them out.
But I've I've used them to dobioassays before. So yeah. No. I
I I definitely wanna try thisthis year, Ken, so I can maybe
eat some, before they get intothe house because let's be
(28:15):
clear, they probably won't makeit into the house. There's a lot
of eating that happens out inthe garden.
Ken (28:20):
Yes. Yeah. And, you know, and and, obviously, people have
eaten beef for it, so they'refairly big seeds so you can put
them down. I think it wasusually an inch or so deep. So
this is not a a surface, so itwill take a little time to I
usually just, you know, dig atrench, stick them in there
again, inch or so apart.
They read the seed back, andthey'll tell you what it should
(28:42):
be of that cultivar. But you canfit quite a few plants in a
small area.
Chris (28:47):
And then take advantage of that, atmospheric nitrogen
that has, kind of been tied upin those root systems. And so
when you chop your peas down, doyou leave your roots in the
ground?
Ken (29:02):
I don't even usually chop them down. They're just I I
still have peas on the gardenfence.
Chris (29:07):
They blow away in the wind just like that old eagle
song, dust in the wind. Yeah.
Ken (29:12):
But, yeah, the the the roots, if you leave them in
there, you know, as those breakdown as those the rhizobium
bacteria dies, yeah, that'llthat'll release nitrogen to
subsequent crops, couldpotentially use. I would say for
for problems, you know,verticillium wilt, is the one
you see sometimes. Powderymildew, is another one you see
quite a bit, especially as itstarts getting, warmer and more
(29:33):
humid. So powdery mildew wouldlook similar to like it would be
on on cucurbits and stuff likethat. It's different species,
but you'd have this whitepowdery dots spots on leaves,
which can cause them to, tostart to decline.
And I can get on the the podsometimes and get those, kinda
discolored, and stuff as well.So if you if you grow peas and
(29:55):
you've had issues with that inthe past, that's we're probably
looking at trying to find someresistant, varieties or or
cultivars. Good area circulationcan help, so maybe space them
out a little better as well soyou get some airflow through
there. And then, I mean, youcould use fungicides. I don't
know if I do that in a in agarden setting just because
(30:19):
well, that's just me.
We don't need enough peas toreally worry about managing
that. But if you really wantthese, the fungicides could be
an option as well for formanaging, pottery beetle in
them.
Chris (30:31):
So, Ken, I I know we're talking legumes. We're talking
peas related to beans. I wasjust assuming these are insect
pollinated, but I let's asklet's ask Ken. Are these insect
pollinated?
Ken (30:45):
See, I've never I've never seen any pollinators on them. So
I don't know if they can, like,self will they self pollinate?
Yeah. I don't think they do.They can they can self
pollinate.
Chris (30:56):
Yeah.
Ken (30:56):
But like a lot like a lot of things, I'm I'm sure if you
had pollinators in there, youmay get it's not gonna hurt
them. You may get a littlebetter fruit set, if you do
have.
Chris (31:08):
It it looks like that particular self pollination
trait was what helped GregorMendel too,
Ken (31:17):
where
Chris (31:17):
he could more directly manipulate where the pollen
wound up, and he would remove,the anthers because it's a
perfect flower. It contains maleand female parts. So he would
remove all the male parts fromone flower and then take from
the parent flower for the themale parent. He would take the
male flower parts from the otherparent and, cross those. And so
(31:41):
yes.
Interesting. So, yeah, it can itcan be enhanced by manipulation,
whether that's Gregor Mendel oror an insect. But, yes, they are
they are self pollinatingplants.
Ken (31:58):
Yes. It's not that we would want this, but if we don't have
pollinators, you at least haveyour pea still.
Chris (32:04):
From beginning to end, we will have our pea plants.
Ken (32:08):
Hope hopefully, we don't get to that point.
Chris (32:10):
I hope not. Well, that was a lot of great information
about the garden pea, and kindahow it's has been here since the
very beginning, the dawn ofagriculture. And it is the
National Garden Bureau's one oftheir handful plant of the years
(32:30):
now for 2025. Well, the GoodGrowing Podcast is production of
University of Illinois Extensionedited this week by me, Chris
Enroth. A special thanks, Ken.
Thank you so much for hangingout with me, sharing all of
your, vast amounts of the gardenpea knowledge that you have. So
thank you so much for for beingwith us today.
Ken (32:52):
Not sure how vast that is, but Like an ocean. A very small
one.
Chris (32:58):
A very a very shallow ocean.
Ken (33:02):
Ocean. Yes. Thank you. Go go and, get those get those bee
seeds and get ready to get themstarted. Then let's do this
again next week.
Chris (33:11):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. You know, we
know you folks like nativeplants, and we hear you like
pollinators too. But what aboutthe benefits of our native
grasses and our pollinators? Arethere any? We're gonna kinda
look at some of the readings outthere or some of the studies out
there, see what we got.
So, well listeners, thank youfor doing what you do best, and
that is listening. Or if you'rewatching us on YouTube,
(33:33):
watching. And as always, keep ongrowing.
Ken (33:46):
How do you how do you say the sign of it now? Is it pissm?
Chris (33:50):
Pissm. Pissm. Pissm sativum. Sat sativum. Sat sativ
(34:11):
Satay.
So I feel like if it's sativum,it would have the I I. There's a
little the law some there's ane, sativum sativum.
Ken (34:22):
Build a time machine and bring back a Latin speaker.
Chris (34:25):
Yes. So on Missouri Botanical Garden, they have
someone record the Latinphonetics, and it is paisum
sativum. Paisum sativum.
Ken (34:42):
I'll forget that, but Nice to meet you. Sativam. Hope we've
got this recorded. We can dubover.
Chris (34:50):
We'll just have AI do it from here on out.
Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith the University of Illinois
Extension, coming at you from
Macomb, Illinois, and we havegot a great show for you today.
Oh, the thing that, you know, II remember as a kid, and today,
my kids seem to kind of rollthese things around on the
dinner plate. We're going to betalking about the garden pea.
(00:29):
And you know I'm not doing thisby myself. I am joined as always
every single week byhorticulture educator, Ken
Johnson in Jacksonville.
Hey, Ken.
Ken (00:37):
Hello, Chris. Did you have canned pea or frozen peas as a
kid?
Chris (00:42):
I will say 95% of the time, they were canned. 4% of
the time, they were frozen. Andthen 1% of the time, they came
out of the garden. And the 1% ofthe time is, like, I think it
it's more just because of theyield you get off of a pea plant
is not that great. So whenyou're splitting that amongst
(01:03):
five people, you're like, oh,everybody cut your pee in half
and share with your sister oryour who's next to you.
So The
Ken (01:11):
the Mickey Mouse cartoon? Yes. The James and the giant
beanstalk?
Chris (01:15):
Yes. Yeah. Or or Bob Cratchit did that in the, the
Scrooge McDuck version ofChristmas Carol. Yes.
Ken (01:24):
So we always had I was always we usually had canned
peas. So I did not like peasuntil I discovered frozen peas.
Yeah. Those are those are muchbetter, I think.
Chris (01:33):
They they they are much better. You know, we throw
frozen peas in, like, soups andstews and things like that, but
you don't really cook them thatlong. You throw them in the
last, like, five minutes justto, like, unthaw them. And, but
I I do like certain canned peas.I like I like the what do they
call, the very small or thepetite types of canned peas.
(01:57):
I think those are better thannormal, sized canned peas. So
those are my favorites.
Ken (02:05):
I don't think I've ever bought canned peas as an adult.
Chris (02:08):
So Come on over, Ken. We have canned peas quite a bit in
my house because I like them. II actually do like, canned peas
quite a bit. But, again, I likeI I will eat normal sized peas,
but I prefer the petite littleteeny tiny peas. I think they
just taste better.
But I put butter and salt andpepper and all that stuff on
(02:29):
them too.
Ken (02:30):
Oh, see. I eat them plain.
Chris (02:33):
There's see, that's the difference. You gotta add the
butter.
Ken (02:36):
Yeah. Doctor.
Chris (02:37):
Butter is the big thing.
Ken (02:38):
Yes. Every everything tastes good with butter.
Chris (02:41):
That's well, that's the philosophy in my house at least.
Well, Ken, so why are we talkingabout garden peas today? You
know, we've been doing theseplant of the years. So who in
the world has decided to namethe garden pea, the humble
garden pea as as the plant ofthe year this this year for
2025?
Ken (03:03):
This is another one of the the National Garden Bureau year
of fill in the blank. So thisweek just happens to be we're
doing peas. So I think it's, youknow, not necessarily why they
picked it, but, you know,encourage people to grow more
peas. And and it's a relativelyeasy, vegetable to grow, in my
opinion, anyway.
Chris (03:23):
Yeah. And timely. You know, we are breaking into March
now, and garden peas aresometimes one of the the earlier
things that you could plan outin the garden. I know,
typically, you have to have nonfrozen soil to do anything,
which right now, well, it wasnice and thawed out last week as
(03:45):
we had highs that were, like,not quite there, but 70 degree
mark was not that far off forus. And I was just like, man,
maybe I should start plantingthings and thought about peas,
you know, and possibly gettingpeas out in the ground.
But it it it got cold again, andthe soil is hard again with ice
on the top. So, not quite yet.But peas are a very early
(04:07):
season, cool season crop that wewould grow.
Ken (04:12):
Yeah. Typically, we're looking at soil temperatures
usually like mid forties. So,again, they'll depend on the
year, but a lot of times it's,you know, we get a warmer smell,
maybe March, usually sometime inearly April, at least in Central
Illinois. And there's a lot oftimes, at least when we're
planting bees, we're plantingthem in our garden.
Chris (04:32):
Yeah. And I I think that's probably a a a good guess
for a lot of, yards and andhomes and backyard gardens. And
just because there's there's alot of microclimates that also
occur in our residential spaces.But I do have a few spots
that's, like, south facingslope, and I'm so tempted to
(04:56):
just get started. So, you know,you need to tell me right now,
Kent.
Wait. Stop it. Don't do it.
Ken (05:02):
Or if you got enough seed, put some out there. And if they
don't grow, replant. Hey. We'restill probably a little I
haven't looked at the, theweather stations, but U of I
has, set up around the state tosee what the soil temperature
there, but I I can't imagineit's well, maybe they could be,
but I don't think it's gonna bewarm enough, especially looking
(05:24):
at the as we're recording thisTuesday, I think in
Jacksonville, they're callingfor potential snow tomorrow.
Flurries or snow.
Chris (05:34):
Well, winter is not done with us yet even though we are
in March, and I got spoiled bythat warm weather last week. So
yes. You know, Ken, you weresupposed to say don't do it. I
had this little devil on myshoulder saying plant your peas.
Go get some potatoes.
And then Ken pops up on theother shoulder like, why not?
Ken (05:54):
There's only one way to find out if you're gonna be
successful.
Chris (05:57):
That's right. Hey. I love it. It's such a daring gardening
move. I love it.
Yes.
Ken (06:03):
Yes. If if you don't wanna be disappointed, you probably
wanna wait a little bit.
Chris (06:06):
Okay. Well, thank you. Yes. There's there's that.
That's what I needed to hear.
So alright. Gotta avoid thatdisappointment. Yeah. Well, Ken,
I guess some backstory of thethe the humble garden pea. This
particular vegetable crop hasbeen with us pretty much since
(06:27):
the beginning of agriculture,kind of the charred remains,
kinda analyzing them chemicallyof, you know, ancient trash
pits, things that humans wouldwere been living at in ten
thousand years ago, they foundthe charred remains of of the
(06:50):
garden pea.
And, actually, when they look atthe the genetics of the peas
that we grow out in our gardenstoday, they found not one, but
two possible moments in humanhistory when we have tried to or
would try, when we diddomesticate the the garden pea.
(07:11):
And the particular, scientificname for this is pizum or pizum?
Pizum? Now we did this beforethe show. We we figured this
out.
Pizum sativum. So, yeah, we arethat's what we're talking about
today, pizum sativum.
Ken (07:33):
Yes. Because there's a lot of other honestly, a lot of it.
There's other plants that arecalled peas that are not, I
guess, quote unquote true peas.So we have, like, black eyed
peas, which is vigna. As yousaid, it's actually a type of
like a bean.
So peas and beans are related.But black eyed peas are vigna,
(07:53):
the genus vigna, which is abean. Mhmm. Much like sweet
peas. I'm not sure what genesthey are.
But that's not what you wannaeat.
Chris (08:02):
Yeah. Yeah. Don't eat so sweet peas, that is the the
ornamental flowering, type of ofpea, fabaceae plant. However,
the seeds of that particularsweet pea are, toxic. So I I
think even if we in the thepreceding the the part of the
(08:25):
show here, if you hear usmention, like, sweet pea, I will
probably be talking more aboutthe sweeter garden pea.
But in case I misspeak laterhere, yeah, but we do wanna
distinguish, like, sweet pea,that is a more ornamental, you
know, landscaping, type of peathat we are not wanting to eat.
Ken (08:48):
Yes. According to the Wikipedia, sweet pea is a thyrus
odoratus native to Europe.
Chris (08:55):
It's a fun little cottage garden plant, flowering. It dies
back to the ground every year,kinda pops up here and there.
And, yeah, we we have it, hereactually at our food donation
garden here in Macomb. And it'shere because the old house where
our garden was built has sweetpeas growing around it. And even
(09:18):
with all of the demolition andand stuff that happened, the
fact that we're growing ongravel, on an old gravel
driveway, we still have sweetpea vines that that pop up here
and there every so often.
Ken (09:31):
Cool. Yeah. But don't eat them.
Chris (09:33):
Yep.
Ken (09:34):
Sweet peas are another another, topic for another day.
Chris (09:38):
That's right. Yes. Not today. Today, we're talking
about the garden pea. I guesswhen we kind of examine why why
was this so desirable, why wasthis selected, one interesting
little tidbit that I, as I wasgoing through this, and I think
it plays into the garden peas oftoday and and why we like them,
(10:00):
is that the the seeds, which iswhat we typically think of when
we think of seeds or or peas,the seeds within the pod, that
pod is, it's non dehiscent,which means and and dehisence is
the when the pod splits open tothen disperse the seed.
So if you think in your headlike a milkweed pod, milkweed
(10:23):
pods, once that seed is ripe andready to be dispersed, that pod
splits open and that seeddisperses out. The pea pod is is
nondehiscent, and so that meansit doesn't split open. And when
you have a pod like that, doesdoesn't split open. You know, if
you're a a an ancient humanlooking to bring about the dawn
(10:44):
of agriculture, you see a nondehiscent pod and you think, oh,
I can store this in in the pod,and it's protected better than
the other seeds or other wildplants I'm finding out there
where the pods are splittingopen and, you know, insects or,
mice or something might be ableto get to them easier. And so,
(11:06):
they kind of credit the thatability of the pod to stay
closed even when those pea seedsare ready as one of the reasons
why it was probably selected asone of the first crops that we
had out there.
And, you know, peas, the gardenpea being you know, one of the
first things they found, rightalongside was something like
like wheat, or beans. You know?Some you know, those very
(11:28):
earliest crops out there that wewould have been using. And it's
been with us, yeah, since thebeginning when we started
growing food, going from thathunter gatherer style over to
our, you know, we wanted to beable to sit down, settle down,
build larger communities. Thatrequires agriculture, and here
came the garden pea.
Ken (11:47):
It looks like you wanted to be domesticated.
Chris (11:50):
Exactly. Isn't that interesting? So there there this
there's more to this, Ken. Idon't know if you meant to prime
me on that one or not, but butso, one of the interesting
things is that the garden peathat we know, it's sweeter. You
(12:13):
know?
It has a sweeter flavor. So kindof more in the beginning,
though, it was more of thatrounded, more starchier pea. But
it wasn't until around thesixteen hundreds that a
particular genetic mutationproduced a wrinkled but sweeter
(12:35):
garden pea. And it was it that'sit's one of those botany of
desire things where, like, diddid did we pick the plants or
did the plants pick us kind ofthing? But, but, essentially,
this random genetic mutation inthe sixteen hundreds gave rise
to kind of the sweeter gardenpeas that we enjoy today.
(13:00):
And it it is really just the thefact that this genetic mutation
is a pea plant that hasdifficulty building branched
starch molecules. It just doesnot have that enzyme that allows
it to build starch moleculesthat are that are branched, that
are more complex. It has youknow, you can build starch just
(13:23):
like a like a single line oftext. But if you add in this
branching enzyme for starch, youcan now build these just just
big old elaborate webs ofstarch. And that's what the
older, kinda common that fieldpea had, a more starchy field
pea.
But it was this genetic mutationthat where it actually lost
that, which allowed instead ofthat sugar being converted to
(13:45):
starch, it now just it just thatsucrose
Ken (13:48):
I I
Chris (13:49):
think the the glucose and the fructose then just got
converted to sucrose. And sothat's that's why the the
wrinkled peas, that's whythey're wrinkled is because
they're not starchy on theinside. Sugar is more polar, and
so it draws more water into thatpea seed, which stretches that
seed coat. But when that water,dries out, it then that's that
(14:12):
seed shrinks and that seed coatis wrinkled. But, again, whereas
the the the field pea, is a morestarchy one, there's not as much
water in there, and it doesn'tstretch that seed coat, so it
remains rounded.
So the the peas are sointeresting. I think you can do
so much neat stuff with peas.Yeah.
Ken (14:31):
And can we give people flashbacks to high school
biology? Let's do it. And andMendel.
Chris (14:36):
Let's do it. Yes.
Ken (14:40):
So, yeah, I guess I've been basically, our whole concept of
genetics kinda started with withthe Gregor Mendel and looking
at, how, Dow genes are passed onand looking at using garden peas
as an example. Was it looking atflower color? Was it the
wrinkled and non wrinkled peas?
Chris (14:57):
Wrinkled, non wrinkled green peas, yellow peas. Yeah.
Mhmm.
Ken (15:03):
And that kinda laid the groundwork for our our
understanding of of genetics, aswe know it. All our our punnett
squares. Mhmm. All of that allthat fun stuff.
Chris (15:13):
Taking all your alleles and things and and comparing
your, in your Punnett square andand and how everything lines up.
Is it dominant or is itrecessive? And, what manifests
itself when you get these twoparents with these two traits
together? Because before that,before Mendel, everyone was just
like, wow. You just get twoparents and you take all their
(15:36):
genetics, which I don't evenknow if they knew of genetics
that back then.
You you put it all in a a jarand you shake everything up and
you just throw it out andeverything blends together. But
then, Mendel showed that it'snot really a blending. We're not
really blending. That's notwhat's happening. It's these
certain alleles and these genesthat get activated, and some are
dominant, some are recessive.
And, you're not just puttingstuff in a blender and mixing it
(15:59):
up. I mean, kind of, yes, butbut no. There's, like, things
that are that are beingactivated and things that are
going dormant.
Ken (16:07):
And I've it's been a while since I've read about this, but
it rather, you know, it's kindalucky they picked peas because
it's relatively straightforward.Whereas a lot of other plants,
that's not necessarily the caseMhmm. And stuff. So they they
picked the right crop to lookat.
Chris (16:26):
I think so. Yes. And and maybe it was because of the, you
know, there's the peas are justeasier to handle. They're a big
seed. And I think it wassomething like he in his
experiments as he's trying tofigure out this this kind of
dawn of genetics, he grewsomething like 30,000 pea
plants.
Like and I I'm I'm sure in inmodern agricultural research,
(16:50):
like, oh, that's nothing. Butwhen you're a a Hungarian monk
Ken (16:57):
in
Chris (16:57):
in their mid eighteen hundreds, that's a lot of work
for one person.
Ken (17:04):
Yes. Yeah. I can't imagine doing all that.
Chris (17:07):
Well, we covered a lot of the backstory about the garden
pea, you know, where it camefrom, which I guess it's it's
more of a it's more of a MiddleEastern, native, plant. And,
again, it sits right there atthe dawn of agriculture. And so
(17:28):
but what if we wanna fastforward and and grow our own
piece of history in our yard,and grow a a garden pea? There's
this is some it's simple, as Kensaid, but there's also some
different types of peas outthere that have developed over
the generations that humans havebeen working with these. So,
(17:50):
Ken, as as one of the solegrowers of garden peas on this
podcast you know, we're fiftyfifty on this podcast, by the
way.
I I have not grown garden peasas an adult. Ken has. Ken, what
garden peas are there are outthere? What do you grow?
Ken (18:09):
Yeah. So when we're talking about peas, we're growing in our
gardens, typically, we dividethem into to three different
groups. So we got garden orEnglish peas. So these are like
or shelling peas. So these arethe ones, like, if you're buying
cayenne peas or frozen peas,these are the types of peas,
that are gonna be grown.
You'll let those the seeds,fully develop. They're they're
still immature typically whenyou're harvesting them, but
they're kind of that full size.Then you're harvesting them.
(18:33):
Usually, you wanna use thoserelatively quickly because those
those sugars will break downkinda like sweet corn. So if
you're using garden Englishshelling peas, you can use them,
fresh.
You'll kinda harvest that dayusing that the day you harvest
or freeze them or or processthem in some way to kinda retain
that that sugar. Again, the likeyou mentioned, the wrinkly ones
(18:54):
are just gonna be sweeter.They're not wrinkly. They're
gonna be a little more starchy.And that may be something that
you'd be using, like, in a soup,or something like that.
There are, snow or sugar peas.And this is the ones that you
would see a lot of times in,like, stir fry, the the thin
potted ones. The seeds aren'treally developed. They're still
flat. And and you're usingthose, again, fresh steamed
(19:18):
cooked.
There are a variety of differentways you can use those. If those
seeds do start getting bigger,that pod will get fibrous. You
can still eat it, but, again,you're gonna be doing a lot more
chewing. It gets a littlestringy. So that may be when
those seeds and and those snowor sugar peas get big, then
you're probably using those morelike a shelling pea, English pea
(19:38):
instead, instead of eating thatpot and everything.
Now, then there are, snap peas.So these, a lot of times we're
harvesting those when the seedsare about the size of a BB. So
they're starting to develop, butthey're not fully developed. And
again, these are thicker,walled, cells or skins, whatever
you want to call them. Andagain, you're eating these, a
(20:00):
lot of times raw, salads.
You can cook them like snap, orsnow peas, as well, or you can
shell them as well. So they're alittle more, I guess, multi use.
Sometimes you see them as stirfry as well, the the more, I
guess, tubular, type pea pods,not the flat ones, which would
be the snow peas. So they'retypically the the three groups.
(20:22):
And when it comes to what you'regonna what you wanna grow in
your garden, you know, kindathink about how you're gonna use
the peas.
I would what what I grow in mygarden are gonna be the the snow
or the snap. I don't really haveany interest in in growing peas
and having to shell them. It'smuch easier to just buy a bag of
peas or a can of peas, for thatpurpose. So and we're growing,
(20:43):
you know, the the snow aresnapping. And we'll get them I
mean, usually when we'reharvesting, the kids are
helping.
We don't really none of themreally make it inside. They're
being eaten as they'reharvested, and stuff, which I
can't really complain aboutbecause they're eating their
vegetables.
Chris (20:57):
That was my childhood guardian experience with with
peas, especially was, you eatthem as you as you harvest them.
And then we we did do some ofthe the shelling peas. And I
would sit at the dining roomtable, and I would put, you
know, in an old ice creambucket. And, you know, I'd spend
(21:21):
hours working on maybe a half acup worth of fresh garden peas.
But, yeah, you you kinda get inthe you get, like, a a rhythm or
you you figure out how to kindaquickly pop open that shell, zip
out the the the peas insidethere and, you know, toss the
the the shell, the pod, and thenkeep going.
So, I'd I'd still I I wish itdidn't take so much to to grow
(21:47):
your own shelled peas, like yousaid, Ken. It's just easier to
go buy it at the store.
Ken (21:52):
Yeah. You have kids now. Put them to work.
Chris (21:55):
Well, that will last all of five minutes, but we'll see.
Yeah. It's worth a try. Right?
Ken (22:01):
Yeah. So then when it comes to actually growing your peas
and once you've picked, what youwant, these peas are, you know,
not that they're small plants,but you don't have to have very
wide spacing. A lot of timesit's like an inch, inch or two
in between plants. So you canplant them pretty dense. Most of
them are probably gonna wantsomething to grow up.
So I grow we have a fence aroundour garden. I just grow it up
that fence. Some sort oftrellising, that you're gonna
(22:24):
grow up, they'll send out thetendrils and and climb.
Sometimes you may need to helpthem find it a little bit. You
can grow them up strings,however you wanna do it.
But find some way to let themgrow up. Otherwise, a lot of
times they'll they'll growtogether, and then it can become
kind of a mess, trying to pickthem with they all, you know,
start growing on top of eachother, and mixed. Like, you
(22:45):
know, typical garden soil, goodorganic matter, they do like you
do want the soil to drain,though, because you can get
some, like, Fusarium, which isrelatively common disease that
we see in that, lower leaveswill start yellowing and plants
will decline. A lot of times yousee that in in soil that does
not drain as well. So keep keepthat in mind.
(23:05):
As far as, you know, when welland since, peas are legume or
the bean family, they have thethe, the rhizobium, the
symbiotic relationship with thebacteria in the soil. So they
can take atmospheric nitrogen,convert that into a plant
available form. Some places thatyou can buy that inoculant, coat
(23:28):
the seeds. And that typically,you'd moisten the seeds, mix
that in the inoculant so youhave that bacteria, present. If
you've grown peas and beans inthe plant, you probably already
have in the past, you probablyalready have that in your soil.
So I wouldn't say that's anabsolute necessity, to get that.
I we never get it for ours, andour peas grow, just fine. But
that is an option out there,that that some places will sell,
(23:50):
especially that you see it moreon the online. I've never really
seen that available in stores.But if you're buying them
online, that may be somethingthat's suggested, to grow with
it.
And then, yeah, then dependingon on the cultivar you're
growing, it could be thirty,forty days, seventy days. It
just kinda depends on thecultivar before, we start seeing
(24:14):
a harvest. So talk about kind ofthe three, pea cultivars that we
grow in our garden anyway. Soone that we grow is called sugar
magnolia. So this is a purplepotted bean inside the purple
yeah.
The pot is purple. The inside ofthe pod and, fruit or the the
(24:35):
seeds itself are green. This isa seventy day. So it's and it
grows maybe up to seven feettall. So this one is is much
bigger.
I think it's got a little bitbetter heat tolerance, than
other types of peas, which isgood since it's a seventy day.
It's gonna take a little bitlonger. And it's gonna start
warming up. And typically, whenit starts getting warmer, peas
will start declining becausethey are, cool season crops. So
(25:00):
that's one we're growing.
If and, you know, if we get ouracts together in the fall, we
can plant that in late summerand then use that as a fall
harvest as well. And then we twoothers that we grow are little
Snow Pea Purple and little SnowPea White. So these are are
smaller peas. They only getabout two feet tall, for the the
purple, about 40 inches tall forthe white. And then it can be
(25:23):
because they are smaller, theycan be grown in pots.
So if you don't have a place,you could put them in ground.
The these these would be goodoptions for that. The the
purple, as, like, the nameimplies, has purple flowers on
it. And then again but it's gotthe the green pods, and green
beans. That's fifty to fiftyfour days.
That's That's a little bitquicker harvest. So, again,
(25:45):
we're planting these in thespring. We can plant them again
in the fall. A little moreforgiving because it doesn't
have as long of a a growingseason or you won't have to wait
as long to harvest. And thelittle Snowpy white, this is
thirty days.
This is a pretty quick,turnaround, which is why we grow
this one. Both of these are arethe, the Snowpy, types, again,
(26:09):
as the name implies. So we're sothis one here, we get a really
quick turnaround. So, basically,we've got our our snow little
Snowpy white will come in. We'llget a harvest or so off of that,
and the purple starts coming in,and the magnolia comes in.
You can get multiple harvestsoff of these. But this way, we
kinda we've got a longer harvestwindow, by growing these three
different cultivars. And, again,they can all be planted again
(26:32):
late summer, early fall for fallharvest.
Chris (26:36):
I I think maybe I will get started in peas this year.
I'm gonna go with the shorter,maturity one. I just think that
for me, that probably makes moresense, especially if you're able
to rotate in anything in thatspot. Do you rotate, like, warm
season crops where your springpeas were? Or are they there
(26:56):
long enough that you there's notenough time or the window isn't
quite right?
Ken (27:02):
We could, but since we grow them up the fence on our ground,
we're we're really not growinganything, up against that
anyway. But if, you know, wecould probably follow those up
with, tomatoes or peppers,something like that. And since
they are a little bit smaller,you know, we could probably
plant, you know, intercrop that,plant those tomatoes or peppers
in between those plants, whilethey're still while they're
(27:24):
while they're finishing up andthen let those grow up, after
that.
Chris (27:28):
This reminds me, the only I have grown peas, but the only
thing I used them for was a abioassay, which is a a method to
determine if you might have,like, a, like, a herbicide
contaminated soil or something.You know? You you take a sample
of that soil, you throw some peaseeds in there, and you take a
(27:50):
normal potting soil, and youthrow pea seeds in there. That's
your control, and you just seeif there's any stunting or
malformation of your of yourseedlings. So I I've never grown
them I've never grown them out.
But I've I've used them to dobioassays before. So yeah. No. I
I I definitely wanna try thisthis year, Ken, so I can maybe
eat some, before they get intothe house because let's be
(28:15):
clear, they probably won't makeit into the house. There's a lot
of eating that happens out inthe garden.
Ken (28:20):
Yes. Yeah. And, you know, and and, obviously, people have
eaten beef for it, so they'refairly big seeds so you can put
them down. I think it wasusually an inch or so deep. So
this is not a a surface, so itwill take a little time to I
usually just, you know, dig atrench, stick them in there
again, inch or so apart.
They read the seed back, andthey'll tell you what it should
(28:42):
be of that cultivar. But you canfit quite a few plants in a
small area.
Chris (28:47):
And then take advantage of that, atmospheric nitrogen
that has, kind of been tied upin those root systems. And so
when you chop your peas down, doyou leave your roots in the
ground?
Ken (29:02):
I don't even usually chop them down. They're just I I
still have peas on the gardenfence.
Chris (29:07):
They blow away in the wind just like that old eagle
song, dust in the wind. Yeah.
Ken (29:12):
But, yeah, the the the roots, if you leave them in
there, you know, as those breakdown as those the rhizobium
bacteria dies, yeah, that'llthat'll release nitrogen to
subsequent crops, couldpotentially use. I would say for
for problems, you know,verticillium wilt, is the one
you see sometimes. Powderymildew, is another one you see
quite a bit, especially as itstarts getting, warmer and more
(29:33):
humid. So powdery mildew wouldlook similar to like it would be
on on cucurbits and stuff likethat. It's different species,
but you'd have this whitepowdery dots spots on leaves,
which can cause them to, tostart to decline.
And I can get on the the podsometimes and get those, kinda
discolored, and stuff as well.So if you if you grow peas and
(29:55):
you've had issues with that inthe past, that's we're probably
looking at trying to find someresistant, varieties or or
cultivars. Good area circulationcan help, so maybe space them
out a little better as well soyou get some airflow through
there. And then, I mean, youcould use fungicides. I don't
know if I do that in a in agarden setting just because
(30:19):
well, that's just me.
We don't need enough peas toreally worry about managing
that. But if you really wantthese, the fungicides could be
an option as well for formanaging, pottery beetle in
them.
Chris (30:31):
So, Ken, I I know we're talking legumes. We're talking
peas related to beans. I wasjust assuming these are insect
pollinated, but I let's asklet's ask Ken. Are these insect
pollinated?
Ken (30:45):
See, I've never I've never seen any pollinators on them. So
I don't know if they can, like,self will they self pollinate?
Yeah. I don't think they do.They can they can self
pollinate.
Chris (30:56):
Yeah.
Ken (30:56):
But like a lot like a lot of things, I'm I'm sure if you
had pollinators in there, youmay get it's not gonna hurt
them. You may get a littlebetter fruit set, if you do
have.
Chris (31:08):
It it looks like that particular self pollination
trait was what helped GregorMendel too,
Ken (31:17):
where
Chris (31:17):
he could more directly manipulate where the pollen
wound up, and he would remove,the anthers because it's a
perfect flower. It contains maleand female parts. So he would
remove all the male parts fromone flower and then take from
the parent flower for the themale parent. He would take the
male flower parts from the otherparent and, cross those. And so
(31:41):
yes.
Interesting. So, yeah, it can itcan be enhanced by manipulation,
whether that's Gregor Mendel oror an insect. But, yes, they are
they are self pollinatingplants.
Ken (31:58):
Yes. It's not that we would want this, but if we don't have
pollinators, you at least haveyour pea still.
Chris (32:04):
From beginning to end, we will have our pea plants.
Ken (32:08):
Hope hopefully, we don't get to that point.
Chris (32:10):
I hope not. Well, that was a lot of great information
about the garden pea, and kindahow it's has been here since the
very beginning, the dawn ofagriculture. And it is the
National Garden Bureau's one oftheir handful plant of the years
(32:30):
now for 2025. Well, the GoodGrowing Podcast is production of
University of Illinois Extensionedited this week by me, Chris
Enroth. A special thanks, Ken.
Thank you so much for hangingout with me, sharing all of
your, vast amounts of the gardenpea knowledge that you have. So
thank you so much for for beingwith us today.
Ken (32:52):
Not sure how vast that is, but Like an ocean. A very small
one.
Chris (32:58):
A very a very shallow ocean.
Ken (33:02):
Ocean. Yes. Thank you. Go go and, get those get those bee
seeds and get ready to get themstarted. Then let's do this
again next week.
Chris (33:11):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. You know, we
know you folks like nativeplants, and we hear you like
pollinators too. But what aboutthe benefits of our native
grasses and our pollinators? Arethere any? We're gonna kinda
look at some of the readings outthere or some of the studies out
there, see what we got.
So, well listeners, thank youfor doing what you do best, and
that is listening. Or if you'rewatching us on YouTube,
(33:33):
watching. And as always, keep ongrowing.
Ken (33:46):
How do you how do you say the sign of it now? Is it pissm?
Chris (33:50):
Pissm. Pissm. Pissm sativum. Sat sativum. Sat sativ
(34:11):
Satay.
So I feel like if it's sativum,it would have the I I. There's a
little the law some there's ane, sativum sativum.
Ken (34:22):
Build a time machine and bring back a Latin speaker.
Chris (34:25):
Yes. So on Missouri Botanical Garden, they have
someone record the Latinphonetics, and it is paisum
sativum. Paisum sativum.
Ken (34:42):
I'll forget that, but Nice to meet you. Sativam. Hope we've
got this recorded. We can dubover.
Chris (34:50):
We'll just have AI do it from here on out.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!