Peas

[crazyfeathers]

Hi, i planted peas in a single row and need some advice on how to tie them up. Any ideas with materials every gardener has on hand would be great. I never plant peas but my grandson loves them.
Should i do the same with my beans? Again i single rowed them. Next year i will get my act together lol.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are different types of peas, snow peas, snap peas, and the old standard green peas. That’s important on how you harvest them but not so important on how they grow. Some pea varieties of all of these are “bush” type. They grow to a limited height so really don’t need supports, but that does make them easier to harvest and easier to keep the weeds and grass out. The “pole” types do need support. Otherwise they will sprawl all over, making a total mess. The pea pods can rot if in contact with wet ground too. If you have the seed packet it should tell you what kind you have.

Beans are the same way. You can have beans intended for green beans, beans meant to be used only as dried beans, or beans that can be used both ways. Some of those are bush beans and some pole beans. You even get some called half-runners. The bush beans do not need to be supported, the pole beans really do, and the half-runners don’t absolutely have to be but they should. Again the seed packet should tell you which you have.

There are all kinds of different ways to support them. I have a fence around my garden so I plant my pole beans along that fence. Works great but occasionally the deer will munch on the ones outside the fence. It’s not that bad here. I bought cow panels, 16 feet long and just over 4 feet high, cut off a bottom horizontal so I was left with spikes, drove some T-posts into the ground and tied the cow panel to that for support for my snap peas. My Little Midgets green peas are bush so I don’t support them. I don’t support my bush beans either.

Some people set two posts at the ends of the rows and string fencing between them. I’ve done that before. Dad would take some tree limbs about 5 or 6 feet high and just push them into the ground deep enough so they would be self-supporting. The beans or peas would climb up those. If you have some stakes maybe 5 to 6 feet high you can stick them in the ground and run string from the top down to form a Teepee type structure. It can help in the wind to stake some of those strings at different angles to keep them from blowing over.

Sometimes you have to guide the beans or peas to start climbing. Once they start they do OK on their own. I use string or strips torn from an old T-shirt to tie them up to get them started when I need to or just weave them into the fencing.

 

[crazyfeathers]

My beans are pole beans so i will do as you said and use cattle panels and metal stakes. I am not sure what type of peas i have i belive i discarded the package and assumed all peas climb. Thank you for the great information. I have been a flower gardener for years and take a lot of pride in my flower beds 9 of them spread through out 2 1/2 acres, i love to share my plants and make bouquets for anyone lol. Now vegetable gardening is different, this is my second year doing a vege garden and i made it 2x as large as last year. When we were children we had a humongous garden (enough to feed 12 kids) and i loved it. Being out in the garden, weeding, watering, harvesting, and getting some vitamin D. Its been many years since i had the opportunity to have a vegetable garden again and need to relearn a lot, i just purchased a book with good information on what happens in a garden each month of the year. When to plant certain vegetables, when to add compost, what plants grow best in my zone. My husband built me a green house this spring and everything grew beautifully. I did put my watermelon and cantaloupe in too soon but i started more than i needed so i removed the frost bitten plants and planted some new ones. I know you don't have to start watermelon and cantaloupe but i was just so excited about my green house i started almost everything lol. I will stop rambling, i sincerely appreciate your wisdom.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I cut my cow panels in half with bolt cutters so they were only 8’ long. Those 16’ lengths re pretty hard to handle, especially by yourself.

All gardening is local. We have different microclimates, let alone general climate differences, different soils, different first and last frost dates, different growing seasons, different gardening methods, a lot of differences. In Wisconsin you might be pushed to get watermelon to ripen, even starting them indoors. Down here, I just put the seeds in the ground. My season is long enough.

I got a good brochure from my county extension agent (in the phone book or online for contact information) that month by month lists when I can start different things. Each state is different but your county extension agent should have something similar. I think it is worth checking out.

If you haven’t done it yet you might want to check out the sister site http://www.theeasygarden.com/ It’s a small friendly site with gardeners form all over, including Wisconsin, some just starting out and some with a lot of experience. Some people would love to chat with you about your flowers as much as the veggies. You might want to just lurk bit and see what you think.

 

[crazyfeathers]

Thanks Ridgerunner, I tried to join sister site but there must be some issues right now as i joined and then it said it couldn't find me, go figure, I've been invisible all my life lol i will try again later.

In the fall is it alright to add chicken, pig, or rabbit poo into the garden at the end of the season? I read somewhere about poo burning the plants if its too fresh?

Thank you for your reply and i will check with our extension like you mentioned.

Ps, my hubby will help me with the cattle panels we have 2 left over from redoing our goat/pig run so it works out beautifully.

 

[crazyfeathers]

Thought I'd share my green thumb.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Talk to your extension agent about adding that poop to the garden in the fall. That’s how we do it down here and by spring it has broken up. But our ground is not frozen solid all winter like yours. I still think you’d be OK but I don’t have local experience.

 

[crazyfeathers]

Ok thanks