St. Patrick's Day Pea Planting?

[The Mama Chicken]

Getting back on topic...
The snow peas that I planted in the main garden in February were decimated by aphids, but the ones my kids planted in their little garden beds are doing great. I would plant again but it's going to be far too warm here in zone 8 to get a good crop, so instead I will be planting pole beans this week. I'm sad though, I love snow peas and was hoping to get a lot of them, and now I'll have to wait until late fall to try again. There are some drawbacks to living down here in the south.

 

[digitS']

Well, I often do not read carefully. Writing carefully isn't a real strong suit either.

Let's see, in your 1st post you were asking, "Any tips?" Here is my tip: March 17th isn't the best date to plant peas in many, many locations. Certainly, it wouldn't work for my location. Planting them in early March would be impossible on half the years, the ground is frozen.

When others offered some mild hesitation toward accepting the idea that March 17th was best, you responded, "Here is a detailed article on how to grow Sweet Peas, below. You will note that it says to mark your calendar to plant them on March 17 . . ." The link to the blogspot blog AND Garden Alive article by Mike McGrath, both have that same date: March 17. Okay, you are clearly committed to that date but I'll go back to my contention that it isn't best for a whole lot of us.

The examples I used were extreme: northern Canada and Alaska where the temperatures are still sub-zero every day. I am sorry for having done that. Here are 6 states and no mention of March 17th or March, for that matter:

Here is Alabama Cooperative Extension advising their gardeners to plant in "February."

Here is Clemson University advising South Carolinian gardeners to plant from January 10 thru February 15th.

Here is South Dakota State advising gardeners to plant "in April or early May." They also tell us to use "succession planting (every 1 to 2 weeks)" for a long season of production.

Here is the University of New Hampshire giving dates of "April 20 May 5" for planting peas.

Here is Oregon State University suggesting February for "western Oregon" for garden peas and sweet peas and gardeners in Central Oregon and higher elevations of eastern Oregon sowing in "late April."

The University of Idaho tells us "peas should be direct-seeded about one month before average last spring frost and after average daily soil temperatures reach 50F." I won't pay too close attention to that since waiting for a 50 soil temperature would be very late, altho' it will fit fine for later sowings. My soil right now is 36.

On that other thread on soil temperature I linked to University of Minnesota information on germination times at various temperatures. It is 36 days at 41. My soil is still 5 short of that and if the seed went in now, I'm fairly confident that it would take over a month for emergence.

I am sorry if I sounded condescending and probably a bit silly, as well. I have now really gone on too much on the subject of when should peas be planted but I think it depends on what kind of peas and it varies greatly by climate. And, I'm going to go ahead and post this.

Steve

 

[GardenGeisha]

Of course the planting date varies from zone to zone and within microclimates. I am quite well aware of that. I acknowledged that in my posting. The person who said the date to plant peas was late March did not. It seems odd to me, when I acknowledged the zone differences, and she did not, that you picked on me, instead of her?

With the links I posted, I was confirming MY zone's planting date of March 17, since she stated that it was too early, and did not specify that perhaps she meant that it was too early merely for HER zone. I did not want people in my zone to be misled by her post.

I'm sorry you misinterpreted my reasons for posting those links that validate the March 17 planting date, which must be pretty widespread, considering so many seed companies and other educational gardening sites, not just Mike McGrath's recommend it. Did you read the Botanical Interests web site I posted, which also recommends March 17 as a planting date? That is not a Mike McGrath site, and it is also one of the foremost sweet pea seed companies. I don't think they would post a planting date that doesn't work for most of our country. It would not be good business.

What is key is that sweet peas, after planting, require at 50-60 days of temperatures below 60 degrees F to flourish and bloom fabulously. Wherever you live, that tip should help you gauge when to plant them.

 

[GardenGeisha]

And here is a newspaper article written by my local Extension Agent and Radio Gardening Show host which confirms the mid-March planting date for my zone. It's full of great sweet pea growing tips:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600116099/Sweet-peas-offer-lots-of-charm-beauty.html?pg=2

Enjoy!

 

[chris09]

To be honest the "traditional" planting date for peas would be March 30th by our new calendar just because when this lore was started they were still using the old Julian calendar.
(March 17th by Julian calendar is March 30th on our new calendar) So all that planted on March 17th (new calendar date) actually planted 13 days early for traditional planting date.
Besides using the Julian calendar farmers were planting by the moon phases, basically you plant aboveground crops (lettuce, peas, tomatoes, etc.) when the moon is waxing (growing) from New to Full Moon. Underground crops (beets, radishes carrots, potatoes, etc.) are planted when the moon is waning from Full to New Moon. But planting by the moon is a whole different post though I will leave you with this, If weather is permitting and you want to plant on the "traditional" planting date by calendar and moon then March 30th would be the date you are looking at.

If the weather is not permitting then you could plant peas on the traditional planting date for New England which is the third Monday in April (Patriots' Day) but then you will have the moon agents you. :/


Chris

 

[momofdrew]

First time poster! Found your site and I like it. And drum roll please my first post is .....



Yers, I planted 1 packet of Green Arrow and 1 packet of little Marvels, on opposite sides, using the double row method with a 4' high trellis (netting type) in the middle. I'm different what can i say!

 

[ducks4you]

I've been planting my sugar snap peas. I have about 100 seeds in the ground next to my street side (used to be cattle) fencing, so they have something to climb. After I chop down the rest of the tree-of-paradise saplings, they should be another 100 seeds in the ground. May will be a flavorful month.

 

[momofdrew]

I say plant any damn time you want to... if it grows wonderful if not oh well next year the weather may be better...Usually this time of year we have snow up the wazoo so we cant plant anything but this year has been mild so I put a "few" peas in to see what would happen yesterday...