Vegetable Gardening (47 page)

You also can grow peas as a fall crop, which you start in summer so the plants mature in the cool days of autumn. I've had success planting snow peas as a fall crop. You can harvest these legumes sooner than English and snap peas because you can eat the flat pea pods as soon as they form and before the freezing weather hits.

To help pea seeds germinate in cold or hot soils, try
pregerminating
the seeds (see Figure 7-1). Place the pea seeds in a moist paper towel in a dark, warm spot for a few days. Check the seeds daily; when you see a small root begin to grow, plant the peas in the ground. Pregerminating helps the peas get off to a faster start and reduces the chance that they'll rot in cool soil.

Spacing properly and providing support

How close you plant your legumes depends on the varieties you've chosen. The following guidelines can help:

Bush beans grow best in rows on top of a raised bed.
In rows 1 to 2 feet apart, plant the individual seeds within 1 to 2 inches of each other. Then thin the beans to 4 to 6 inches apart after they germinate and emerge from the soil. (Chapter 13 provides pointers on how to thin your vegetable seedlings.)

Because you plant peas when the soil is cooler, the germination percentage may be less than with beans.
So, on your raised bed, plant your peas less than 1 inch apart in rows 6 inches apart.

Tall vining varieties of beans, such as pole beans, and tall varieties of peas need support to grow their best. The type of support needed depends on the plant (see Figure 7-2). Pole bean shoots spiral and wrap themselves around objects that they can climb, and peas attach themselves to objects with
tendrils
(grabbing shoots that hold onto whatever they come in contact with). Generally, beans like to climb poles, and peas like to climb fences. The height of your fence or pole depends on the varieties that you're growing: A 4- to 5-foot fence is good for most peas, and a 6- to 8-foot pole is good for pole beans.

Keep your fences and poles within reach because if the plants grow too tall, you'll need to use a ladder to harvest. For more information on trellises, fences, and teepees, see Chapter 15.

Plant both pea and bean seeds 1 to 2 inches deep. Plant pole beans around individual poles; you should have 4 to 6 pole beans around each pole, about 6 inches away from the pole (see Figure 7-3). In between the pea rows, place your trellis or chicken wire so the peas can climb both sides of a fence (or whatever you have for them to climb on).

After they start to grow, beans and peas need little attention other than regular watering and weeding. Both benefit from a layer of hay or straw mulch placed around the rows. The hay or straw mulch reduces the need for weeding and keeps the soil moist. (See Chapter 15 for more on mulch and other maintenance.)

Be careful when weeding around peas because they have shallow root systems. Instead of digging in the soil around the roots, pull any weeds by hand or bury young weeds with soil as they germinate.

Thwarting pests and diseases

One nice thing about beans and peas is that they're susceptible to only a few serious pests or diseases. However, some of the common problems that plague other vegetables, such as damping off, fusarium wilt, powdery mildew, and leaf blight, also can be problematic for peas and beans (see Chapter 17). You can avoid many of these problems in vegetables by rotating crops, tilling in the fall, and growing resistant varieties; see Chapter 16 for details. The following sections describe some problems specific to beans and peas.

Battles for beans

Here are the most troublesome of the bean problems along with some advice on how to solve (and prevent!) them:

Bald heading:
If your bean seedlings emerge from the soil without leaves, they may have a condition called
bald heading.
Insects can cause this condition and so can seed that has been damaged. It can occur when you plant the seeds too deep in the ground or in gravel soil, which causes the leaves to rip off as they try to break through the soil. To prevent this condition, prepare the seed bed by removing rocks, sticks, and clods of soil before planting; and don't plant too deep. Leafless beans don't produce any crops, so if you see any leafless beans, pull them out and replant.