6 Pea Varities on Trial

I am a fool for peas; I love them any way I can get them, except in a can. (Canned peas are right up there as one of the worst canned vegetables there is). I am on a quest for the best possible peas and so I have been trialling different varieties. In the late winter, early spring of 2009 I grew 6 varieties of peas: Little Marvel in an oval planter in the greenhouse, Dwarf Gray Sugar in two large tubs in the greenhouse, Sugar Snaps outside and in the greenhouse bed, Maxi Golt, Bleushokker and Sweet Magnolia, all growing outdoors. The Sugar Snaps are a staple pea variety at my place and I frequently grow the Dwarf Grey Sugar. The other four varieties were new to me this year and were only planted in small amounts. This is my experience with them.

The Little Marvels are dwarf shelling peas and did well even restricted to a smallish container as they were. They grew about 18 inches tall and stood up well. The peas were easy to find and pick. Their season was short, however, producing a lot of peas at once, and then quitting. Also, they were not as sweet as the Maxi Golts, especially when they got large, so I will not grow them next year but will try something else.

The Dwarf Gray Sugars did very well in the tubs. They grew about 3-4 feet tall, climbing up a trellis of sticks and string. They probably would have gone taller if I had provided more room for them to climb. Dwarf Grey Sugar peas are also called Chinese or Snow peas. They are the large flat pea pods found in Chinese stir fries. The plants are really pretty with two tone pink and purple flowers, which look like Sweet Pea flowers. They are great additions to decorative, edible gardens. They produced a lot of sweet, crunchy snow peas until it started getting really hot, but peas don't like the heat anyway. I will definitely grow them again.

The Maxi Golts are a shelling pea, growing about 4 feet tall. They did produce a lot of pods, but 2/3 of the weight is lost in shelling. They were good tasting but nothing spectacular. So I won't grow them next year, but will try a different shelling pea.

The Sugar Snap pea looks like a shelling pea, in that the pods get large and round. However, unlike shelling peas, the pods do not become fibrous and are as sweet and crunchy to eat as the Dwarf Gray Sugars. The original Sugar Snap pea was introduced to the gardening world in 1979 and there are now several variations, some shorter and some with resistance to certain pea diseases.

. Sugar Snaps grow about 6 feet tall (some gardeners have reported them even taller). They did well, producing some pods through early season heat waves of 90 degree days, though they were beginning to show signs of heat stress. The plants growing in the greenhouse beds began producing first and were the first to begin showing signs of heat stress. The outdoor plantings started about 10 days later and lasted a little longer. I can make a meal of fresh Sugar Snaps, either raw or cooked in various ways. I will of course grow them again.

The Sweet Magnolia is a purple variety of snap pea. It took Alan Kapular of Peace Seeds about 15 years of growing and breeding them before the variety was stable enough to offer for sale. While they don't seem quite as sweet as the Sugar Snaps, I will be growing them again. The blossoms are very pretty in the garden and the purple pods make them easy to see for picking. These were the last peas to be planted (in late January) so they did not produce as well as the Sugar Snaps. However I think they will produce just as well if planted at the same time (in November or December).

The surprise was the Blauwschokkers. This is an ancient purple podded variety grown in Europe for soup. I had also heard that they could be eaten like snow peas when small and still flat. They were tender at that stage, but not very pea flavored. I never did decide exactly what they tasted like; I just know they didn't taste like any pea I'd eaten before. Larger, shelled and raw they actually tasted a little bitter. The surprise came when I shelled and cooked them. They were sweet and starchy; they would make a great soup or a different sort of side dish. The Blauwschokkers grew about 5-6 feet tall, with pretty flowers and of course, easy to find purple pods. I will definitely grow them again and in much larger quantity. It just goes to show that you have to try things out at different stages and in different ways to really get an idea of what a new variety of vegetable is going to be like.

Here are some sources for the different varieties I grew in 2009:

Johnnies Selected Seeds carries Sugar Snap and Maxi Golt, in addition to a lot of other pea varieties of different types. http://www.johnnyseeds.com/

Alan Kapuler is the originator of Sweet Magnolia, the purple snap pea. He is also founder of Peace Seeds. I had trouble accessing their website at www.peaceseeds.com when I checked it recently, but believe the address below is still valid.
Peace Seeds
2385 SE Thompson St
Corvallis, OR 97333 USA

The Seed Saver's Exchange on-line catalog carries the Blauwschokkers, listed as Pea, Blue Podded. They also carry the Dwarf Gray Sugar and several other tempting varieties of peas. http://www.seedsavers.org/

Freedom Seeds carries the Dwarf Gray Sugar pea and another snow pea called Oregon Giant. They also carry 3 varieties of shelling peas. I'm trying to make up my mind between Green Arrow and Tall Telephone as a replacement for the Maxi Golt and the Little Marvel. http://www.freedomseeds.org/