Peas Galore!

[GardenGeisha]

I planted pea seeds on St. Patrick's Day, and they had an extremely high germination rate and are just beautiful!

I have been researching peas and have found some articles that say that while their roots don't like being disturbed, you can transplant them.

I'd like to move some of mine around to other spots. I probably have about 200 pea plants up and doing well.

Do you think it would work to hoe a trench and just dig up the peas I want to move by shoveling under them with a trowel and then carrying them over to the trench and placing them where I want?

The pea plants are about 3-4" tall. Any idea how long their roots might be? I'm trying to determine how deep to dig with the trowel in hopes of not disturbing the roots any more than necessary.

Thanks for your help.

Clare

 

[GardenGeisha]

I found this interesting article on pea roots:

http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137ch19.html

With 200 pea plants, I guess I can just dig one up to examine the roots of. It's not like I don't have any to spare. LOL

These pea seeds got plowed under in the field where I planted them and furrowed about a week after I planted them. It is amazing to me that they survived all that and came up and did so well. I'm not sure how far under the ground the plow and furrow displaced the seeds to. I had planted them about an inch deep.

I didn't think they'd come up after all of that, but I guess they loved the extra moisture the plowing and furrowing brought to the soil they were planted in? I'm wondering whether they have done better than they would have had they not been so disturbed.

Very interesting experiment.

 

[catjac1975]

I planted pea seeds on St. Patrick's Day, and they had an extremely high germination rate and are just beautiful!

I have been researching peas and have found some articles that say that while their roots don't like being disturbed, you can transplant them.

I'd like to move some of mine around to other spots. I probably have about 200 pea plants up and doing well.

Do you think it would work to hoe a trench and just dig up the peas I want to move by shoveling under them with a trowel and then carrying them over to the trench and placing them where I want?

The pea plants are about 3-4" tall. Any idea how long their roots might be? I'm trying to determine how deep to dig with the trowel in hopes of not disturbing the roots any more than necessary.

Thanks for your help.

Clare

I would not transplant them . Try a few for experimentation but I think that will stunt them.

 

[catjac1975]

I planted pea seeds on St. Patrick's Day, and they had an extremely high germination rate and are just beautiful!

I have been researching peas and have found some articles that say that while their roots don't like being disturbed, you can transplant them.

I'd like to move some of mine around to other spots. I probably have about 200 pea plants up and doing well.

Do you think it would work to hoe a trench and just dig up the peas I want to move by shoveling under them with a trowel and then carrying them over to the trench and placing them where I want?

The pea plants are about 3-4" tall. Any idea how long their roots might be? I'm trying to determine how deep to dig with the trowel in hopes of not disturbing the roots any more than necessary.

Thanks for your help.

Clare

Why not seed a second crop directly where you want them?

 

[silkiechicken]

I start peas in cups to take home to my mom since she can't identify seedlings. Once I seeded between peas with new seeds for the ones that did not germinate. She proudly announced when I came home one day she weeded the peas. Yep, perfectly weeded with not any speck of green other than the first set of 5 inch tall pea plants. All the new 2 inch sprouts were gone. LOL


I would just directly seed new seeds where you want them. They transplant well from cups, but I do find that the roots of a pea start will circle the bottom of a 12 ounce cup multiple times by the time it is a few inches tall. I would say if I had straightened out the central pea root, it would be over a foot long as it twirls a good number of times around the bottom.

That said, with an over abundance, might as well take a deep shovel and just move a few chunks and see.

The link you shaed is very interesting, I also grow peas in a pot on our balcony. By the end of the season, one 5 gallon bucket is literally full of roots from a dozen pea plants which will allow you to invert the bucket to get a perfectly bucket shaped ball of dirt to pull apart.

 

[GardenGeisha]

Well, after the farmer plowed up and furrowed my planted pea seeds, he kindly brought me new pea seeds, and I did seed a 2d crop in another location, but who knows whether those will germinate? I hope they are good seeds. They probably are. They got a much later start than the first crop. I think I planted them on April 8.

My problem is he may want to furrow another time, and I think he can't get the plow turned around where the peas are planted without destroying them, so he'd have to take them out, so I might as well try to transplant them, if I want to save them.

Or I could just let the chickens and geese at the baby pea sprouts. I'm sure they'd love to eat them.

That was a funny story about your mom weeding the pea sprouts out. I've had things like that happen, too. They mean so well...

I had thought about moving the little peas to pots, but that would entail digging up the peas, putting them in a wheel barrow, and pushing them to the pots. The pots would be awfully heavy to carry (I was thinking large pots). I think riding in the bumpy wheelbarrow would disrupt the pea roots even more than just carrying them in a shovel to a nearby field trench would, and I find my sweet peas grown in the ground usually do better than my sweet peas grown in pots, although there have been exceptions.

Probably not worth all the work involved, but as you say, it would be fun to experiment and see what happens, since I have so many peas to play with.

 

[ducks4you]

As LONG as you can shovel under the peas and don't disturb them, I'm sure you can transplant them somewhere else. If they've already starting climbing I think you're gonna have to leave them where they are.

 

[silkiechicken]

I grow snow peas... so if you have that kind, you can eat the snow pea shoots yourself in stirfry.

 

[GardenGeisha]

Thanks, Ducks4You, for the encouragement.

I did move several peas tonight.

The best ones were the ones that were growing close together. I could get 3 in a shovel at once, maximizing my odds, I hope, of some surviving, and not having to make so many trips back and forth. :>)

I have no idea which peas were which, since the plow mixed them all up, so it will be the luck of the draw.

Some went into their holes perfectly; others kind of fell apart from the clod and are more iffy.

I have a feeling the smaller the transplant, the better it will do, but it is an experiment. I transplanted big ones, little ones, and one that may not have been a pea at all but resembled one.

I made a small dent in the bucket.

Transplanted them right before sunset so it would be cool and they wouldn't be as likely to go into transplant shock.

Maybe I'll try transplanting some more very early in the morning. It is satisfying trying to save these little guys. But what a lot of work! Good exercise, though. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

 

[897tgigvib]

I'd vote for leaving those peas where they are, and planting more peas where you want them. What you wanted to plant where the peas you want to move, just plant it there anyway, and let the peas be companions for a month or so...