The Pea Whisperer

Growing garden peas is a mad (is there any other kind?) passion of mine. It has to be since growing them in southwest France with its long, hot summers which often begin mid-May pose a challenge of perfect timing. The crop needs cool temperatures but also around ten weeks from sowing to reach a maturity suitable for harvesting meaning those purty little seeds have to be in the ground by the first week in March so they can be plucked before the heat hits in earnest. But the soil temperature must be around 60 degrees F or else they will just sulk or rot or be nibbled by birds. Even if our climate provided a more generous growing window, harvesting them at the peak of sweetness would remain exacting. The pods can seem full and yet inside the peas can still be too small, therefore not yet developing the sugar which turns them into green candy. Or the converse, they are obviously too full, bulging with peas which marched right past their sweet glory into starchy stodginess.  Thankfully, the pods are translucent when held up to the sun. If the peas are just touching each other, the pod goes into the basket. This season I got in three beds of peas! Not the one or two I have been toying with the last ten years, but three whole whopping beds! 

The pea variety beloved by me is the dwarf one. No staking is required and they can be eaten raw from the pod. The other common type is a vine sporting wrinkled peas that must be cooked before eating and also can be left to dry in their pods while still on the vines enabling them to be stored in the cupboard.

Best time to remove the pods from their plants (carefully detach them so as not to uproot the shallowly rooted, still producing mother lode) is in the cool, early morning. If they do have any residual field heat then they first will have a dunk in cold water before being dried, placed in a plastic bag, and put into the fridge awaiting processing which takes place within a week. Harvesting which lasts several weeks has to be done at least twice weekly to encourage more pods to form. In my three-bed case, I pick pods from one bed every day, rotating through the series of three. The total number of pods picked were fifteen litres which amounted, once shelled, to two and quarter litre of peas. Not any peas, but the most pampered, tenderest, sweetest ones, such that a smaller quantity than usual will pack a huge taste punch in our favourite dishes such as minestrone, chicken pot pie, shrimp fried rice, creamy shrimp pasta, and a side of peas and carrots to our pot roast of lamb leg. En bref, a little of these wonders go a long way.  Ok, I am justifying my labour, but they are stupendous. I am guessing our harvest which has been frozen in appropriately sized ziplocked portions will last from four to six months. Processing consisted of boiling them in a large pot of water for two minutes and then shocking them in an iced bath. I spent a day in making the ice as there's only one small tray chez nous. Precious ice diamonds. Next time, I will freeze water in plastic containers and plop instead a few of those into the bath.

The shelling took place under our ivy-covered pergola.

These are the kind of spent shells with which I can live.

The most common number of peas in a pod are about six to eight. Sometimes there a niner (as in the below photo) or even a tenner.

When they become too mature, they lose their roundness and resemble a set of teeth or a row of corn kernels. The few overgrown ones reluctantly got discarded. Looking forward to spring pea madness in 2021, hoping for three beds again, and who knows, maybe four?

À la prochaine!