Which Veggie gardener doesn’t love to grow peas? There’s nothing like fresh peas scooped right out of the pod and into the mouth. Just make sure you don’t eat them all fresh! Putting some away frozen to enjoy during the winter is a great idea and they will have that just picked flavour even in the dead of winter.
Try to leave some pods on the vines so you can use these next year for your pea seed. The ideal would be to just let the peas dry naturally on the vine in your garden.
Sometimes that just doesn’t work. Maybe another veggie needs to go in where the peas were growing. Peas are such a nice early season veggie that you CAN easily plant something in its spot.
This year we aren’t able to just leave the vines on the pea fencing so here’s what we did.
I picked all the pods that looked fairly dry and also picked some that were still green but starting to dry out.
I brought them in the house and spread them out on cookie sheets and I gave them a bit of a stir with my fingers when I’d walk by.
Days later, here’s what they looked liked. You can see how dry the pods are getting. At this point, I start shelling them.
You can thresh them by putting them all in a pillow case and then beat it against a wall. This will separate the peas from the pods.
Here are the peas after I threshed them. I’ll leave them on here for awhile longer and let them dry more.
Then they will get put into a seed envelope, labelled with clear concise info and then put away downstairs in the basement where it is nice and cool. Next year, we’ll bring them up and out to the garden for planting,
This kind of Shell Pea is called Bounty. They taste wonderful fresh or frozen.
You’ll never have to buy pea seed again if you do this!
