Harvesting: Sugar Snap Peas

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Welp. I've finally done it. In my third year of having a vegetable garden, I finally got everything set-up early enough to plant peas directly in the garden (they super flopped in my winter sowing this year) and...get peas. Like, the full harvest of peas.

I grow Cascadia Bush Sugar Snap Peas (from High Mowing Seeds) and Sugar Snap Magnolia Tendril Pea (from Baker Creek Seeds). Can you guess which one is easier to harvest?

While the Cascadia peas are sweeter and more compact, the Magnolia peas are beautiful with lovely flowers and easy-to-spot pods.

Plus, Monty Don of 'Gardener's World' fame grows purple garden peas (Blauwschokker variety), and so this is just one thing we almost have in common ;)

My peas are tucked in the north side of my 18' raised bed, behind the pole bean trellis. This does mean they do not get maximum light, once the beans start being tall enough (around early July), but they still get plenty of sunlight. And I hope having protection from the hot, mid-day sun will help prolong their life a bit. They don't like summer heat too much!

Sugar snap peas are one of the main reasons I garden. I looooooove how fresh garden peas taste! I eat them fast enough, they usually don't make it into the house!

They're also super easy to collect seeds from, which I do regularly to share with others, as well as for me to use next year. As the bottoms of the plants start to dry out, leave a handful of each variety of pods on the stems to dry out, too. Leave the stems & pods until they're completely dried, and then store in a cool, dark place for pea seeds for the following season!