Here is what I grew last year:
Shelling peas:
Green Arrow (it was ok, nothing special)
Blondie (OMG I love this pea best pea ever! You already heard all I have to say about it in my post with all the pictures of my garden last year, so I won't talk much about it here.
)
Early Frosty (I didn't get a harvest from this one; I grew it in my hoophouse and it got some sort of fungal disease.)
Snow peas:
Dwarf Grey Sugar (This is a tasty snow pea, it's a dwarf, but the my favorite thing about it is its beautiful pinky purple flowers! Also, one of my earliest peas.)
Oregon Giant (not a giant, in fact this was the smallest pea plant I had.... huh. Maybe I got the wrong seeds?)
Sugar Snap peas:
Sugar Snap (this is just the plain old traditional sugar snap pea. And it is my favorite out of all the snow peas and sugar snap peas! The pods are crunchy, juicy, sweet, and plain delicious. Healthy productive plants, too.)
Super Sugar Snap (basically like Sugar Snap, only less productive for me. Which is funny, because it is supposed to be more productive!
I probably won't grow again; I'll just grow extra Sugar Snap peas.)
Ok! Now I'll talk about how I support my peas. I usually grow them in the middle of my tomato patch. I put two rebar stakes (about five or six feet tall) in the ground, eight feet apart. Then I stretch garden netting between the two stakes, and tie the netting. (I use the Gardener's Supply Company Nearly Invisible Netting). Then I plant the pea seeds an inch apart on either side of the net. Cover with dirt, water about once a week (we get lots of rain here) and wallah! Peas.
This year, I want to try a fun pea structure that I read about in a gardening book. You find some branches, stick 'em in the ground, plant a couple dwarf pea seeds around the branch, and the pea plants grow up the branch. It is very decorative and pretty looking. It's called pea brush. Here is a great blog post with pictures and info about pea brush:
http://veggiegardenblog.blogspot.com...rush-post.html
Last year, in my hoophouse, I tried another way of supporting the peas. I just planting dwarf pea seeds extremely close to each other, and when the peas grew they supported each other. unfortunately, they grew into an extremely wet, tangled, disease ridden mass. I will not try that again!
I usually keep about three plants per pea variety, and this keeps my family of four with plenty of peas all late spring and early summer! Mmmmm I can't wait til pea season! I usually plant pea seeds sometime in March.
Taryn