Beans & peas
Sugar snap / snow peas
A fall and winter crop here, not a spring crop.
- Outside
- Direct late Sep to Oct, again Jan to early Feb
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground, on a trellis
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Every 5 to 7 days while cool; steady once flowering
- Harvest
- Nov to Dec, then Mar to Apr
Care
- Water
- A deep soak every 5 to 7 days in cool weather if the rain misses, into the soil rather than over the vines; keep it steady once the flowers show, the window that sets the pods.
- Sow
- Direct sow late September through October, an inch or two apart and an inch deep, with the trellis up the same day; a second sowing runs January to early February. No thinning, and an overnight soak hurries the sprout.
- Feed
- A shovel of compost or castings worked in at planting is more than peas need, since they fix their own nitrogen; no feed beyond it. Cut the spent vines at the base and leave the roots to feed what follows.
- Ready
- Snap peas at bite size, crisp and sweet to eat whole; snow peas young and still flat at 2 to 3 inches. The fall sowing picks into the mild winter and the second sowing fills March and April, done before the heat returns.
- Trouble
- The failure mode here is the calendar, not a bug: vines started after the cool window closes sit in rising heat and never produce. Give winter rows drainage against the season's real weather, winter rain, and pick on time.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 5–7 gal bag.
- Water
- Every 2 to 3 days in a dry cool spell; winter rain does most of the watering, so give the bag real drainage and check it by feel.
- Sow
- Sow a dozen around the rim of a 5 to 7 gal bag with a trellis or cage set in it.
Peas invert here: the county rates fall better than the short spring, so the crop runs from an October sowing through the mild winter.
Growing
Killeen turns the spring-pea script upside down, and the county calendar says so outright: peas are noted as better in fall than in the short spring. Sow late September through October, an inch deep along a trellis set the same day, and the vines grow through winter in ground that never freezes solid, picking into the short days. A second sowing in January to early February fills March and April, done and cleared before the heat returns. No fertilizer; peas make their own nitrogen, and the tall snaps still want the six-foot trellis.
Varieties
The Central Texas list names Little Marvel and Wando for shelling types, Cascadia, Sugar Ann and Super Sugar Snap for snaps, and Dwarf Grey Sugar and Oregon Sugar Pod for snow peas.
In the kitchen
Snaps mostly get eaten at the trellis, standing up in the cold. Any that reach the kitchen want thirty seconds in a hot pan and nothing else.