Peas

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slowworm

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May 8, 2008
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Next year I'd like to grow a pea specifically for drying. Just wondering if anyone does this and can recommend any variety at all?

I'd like to try to grow our own protein and rather than growing something like soya beans (which we found rather variable) I know people are growing peas to replace soya so thought we'd try our own.
 

Woody girl

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Mar 31, 2018
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I've successfully grown peas from the dried peas you can buy in the supermarket. Mainly I grow pea shoots on my windowsill but I have grown them to maturity in the garden. I think most peas will be fine. Ive never bothered with special varieties.
 
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bobnewboy

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Jul 2, 2014
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We grew the pea variety called “Jaguar” for our first year here in Somerset. We used successional planting to spread out the harvest, and they fitted nicely in our fruit cage veg patch. They did very well and we have eaten a lot and frozen a lot. I expect our frozen bags will last into February. Good to eat as well. I’m afraid I can’t comment on drying them, but the seeds were very successful from dried seed.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Here, the peas are two groups of varieties:
1. "field peas" are faster growing and much more starchy, they dry better for soups and things.
Not much 'pea' taste though. Many will field ripen, too.
2. "table peas" which don't go very starchy (sweeter) and steam cook more easily for table meal vegetables.
Over ripe, they do go starchy but stay wet and don't dry as easily as the field ones.
= = =
I think if I wanted peas for protein in the long term, I'd be growing the real field peas.
Of course, with enough land, lentils would be the choice.
 

Toddy

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Robson Valley beat me to it :)

However, the field peas are much better eating if they're roasted first. Dry them, roast them, grind them up and they make peasemeal. Lot of old recipes for peasemeal, and it's tasty as well as good for you.
 

slowworm

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May 8, 2008
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Of course, with enough land, lentils would be the choice.

Lentils don't look that easy to grow and harvest a good crop. We've grown plenty of garden peas and they're easy to grow and save seed.

We've also taken part in an edible lupin trial. They grew ok, even tasted fine, but the mice ate most of the seed before it was ripe.

Field pies look a better bet as you can grow far more so any lost to mice should be manageable.
 

Robson Valley

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Lentils here are the big money crop. The arabs show up with Boeing 747 freighters to fly the crop home.
Good old friends are lentil farmers. They are RICH but don't ever show much of it.

Where I live now it's field peas, provided we get enough dry weather for harvest. Then there's lots of money.
The Canada geese are the pests so I got to shoot those fields for all I could drop.
 

Janne

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Feb 10, 2016
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Peas will improve your soil hugely. Nitrogen rich nodules on the roots.
Old tech was to grow a couple of lines of peas then a couple of lines of other crops. Makes a beautiful field too!

Grand mother had potatoes, peas and beans on her only remaining field.
Is there anything tastier than eating a young pea pod you have just picked?

Peas were the staple before potatoes were accepted in much of Europe.
 
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Janne

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Feb 10, 2016
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Yeah, beans are good too. Very versatile.
Will-I-am would agree.

But, to be frank, sweet peas are more versatile.
You can even use them as ammo on a large caliber straw!
 

Robson Valley

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May I drag your collective attention back maybe a thousand years?
On the Great Plains of North America, there was the "Trinity."
This is corn/maize (maybe 6-10 varieties), squash (Cucurbitaceae) and many varieties of beans.
Study "Bird Woman's Garden" a reprint of a long series of interviews and well illustrated with line drawings.
 
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Janne

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Yes, but Mr Slowworm wants to grow peas! Peas as in Sugar Snap, etc.

Slow worm, if you start growing them, remember that the young shoots or tips of the plants are delicious steamed, with some melting butter and a sprinkling of salt flakes!
 

slowworm

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May 8, 2008
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I am not aware of any food, vegetable or animal that can not be dried. We dry a lot of our own foods for preserving, I also dry foods for trail food. I have not come across any one that is better than another for drying.
Keith.

I can be difficult on the west coast. We grow a Greek runner bean that's specifically selected for producing very large edible seeds, like a butter bean. Some years they ripen nicely on the plants but years like this have been very wet in the autumn and the beans have not fully dried.

Now peas are an earlier crop, so more chance of drying. I mentioned drying pea to differentiate them from say a mangetout or pea you don't let fully ripen.
 

slowworm

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May 8, 2008
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Lentils here are the big money crop. The arabs show up with Boeing 747 freighters to fly the crop home.
Good old friends are lentil farmers. They are RICH but don't ever show much of it.

In the UK a lot of field beans (small broad beans) are exported to the middle east. I gather farmers can get a very good price for them.
 
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santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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May I drag your collective attention back maybe a thousand years?
On the Great Plains of North America, there was the "Trinity."
This is corn/maize (maybe 6-10 varieties), squash (Cucurbitaceae) and many varieties of beans.
Study "Bird Woman's Garden" a reprint of a long series of interviews and well illustrated with line drawings.
I remember that as well. We were taught they were called “the three sisters.”
 

Billy-o

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Apr 19, 2018
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Dried pea and bacon soup :)

There's another trick but it is with lentils .. .haven't done it with dried peas yet .. .might not work as I think the lentil and pea skins help a lot in the constituency. Anyway, fry a chopped onion til soft in oil with a fair dose of garlic, fresh ground coriander and cumin, plus salt. Add this to a load of cooked green lentils and an equal amount of cooked peas and add butter to taste. Mash it up. Eat it hot or cold with bread or as a side. Rustic as ...

We grow peas every year, out of various packets, but the kids just stand around browsing on them before they ripen. Also they like pea shoots, which makes it even more difficult to pull in anything like a crop
 
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Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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The best ever dried & sweet peas were a local product in Australia.
They had figured out how to poke a hole in each pea then freeze-dry the lot.
Tramped around the Snowys between Jindabyne and Bogong.
I put those peas in just about evreything but the coffee.

When my kids were home, I bought peas in pods and/or grew some sweet peas just for the simple pleasure of grazing on everything.
Same with carrots. Anything bigger than a pencil was in the edible class.

Just reading today that Canada is an ideal location for pulse crop cultivation
AND the peas/beans/lentils are exported to 75 countries.
I guess that explains the great variety that even I can't help but notice in the grocery stores.
My grandfather grew durum (for pasta), his crops went straight to Italy.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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You're kind of confusing us.
Sweet peas are flowers here. Beautiful, scented flowers, but their peas are poisonous.

images


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