Do you want to do conservation? Do you know which variety is better to buy and how to plant pea seeds? Do you need a brief excursion on the topic? This article will help you understand the intricacies of caring for legumes and grow the best peas in your garden.
Peas: a description of the culture
Representatives of the legume family - pea crops - belong to the group of frost-resistant vegetable crops. This is a climbing plant, reaching a height of 15 to 250 cm (depending on the variety). The flowers are shaped like small moths, have a white or purple color at the base. Sowing seeds is carried out in early spring, waiting for the soil to warm up to +4 … + 6 degrees Celsius.
Peas feel best in a well-heated, calm and lit area. When preparing a garden bed, it is enough to add organic matter or mineral fertilizers.
Any cultivated area with a high content of humus is suitable for sowing, regardless of what crop grew and bore fruit on this bed before.
Interesting! Peas are not too picky about nitrogen.
Species diversity of peas
There are more than a hundred speciespeas, both natural and artificially bred by breeders. All of them are used for specific purposes: for conservation, in cooking, in agriculture and other branches of human life. Seeds of peas, beans are divided into two groups: sugar and shelling. The first have tender and sweet beans, the so-called shoulder blades. The shells of this variety of peas retain their juiciness until the end of the wax period of ripeness.
The peculiarity of peas of sugar varieties, for example "favorite", is that there is no parchment layer in the beans themselves. They are eaten whole, as are okra or okra.
There are two subgroups of sugar peas: soup and dessert.
Soup varieties of sugar peas: features
Super parchment-free pea varieties have different sizes, much smaller than other varieties.
Pods (spatulas) are used to make soups when the seeds are in their infancy. Soup subspecies include pea seeds “favorite”, “soup spatula-181”, “henry-15”, “sugar ambrosia”, “sugar oregon”.
Dessert Sugar Peas: Recommended Varieties
This subspecies is best eaten fresh. Only ripe varieties of sugar peas are full of juice and vitamins, have excellent taste. Both adults and children like to feast on the fruits of dessert peas.
Interesting! Pea blades are actively used in cooking. They make delicious side dishes.
To get dessert blades, it is recommended to use pea seeds "children's sugar", "sugar slider", "sugar honey cake", "Karaganda-1053" for growing.
Characteristics of peeling pea varieties
The peculiarity of shelling peas lies in the presence of a leathery parchment layer on the inside of the pods - this is an inedible layer.
Young beans are shelled, and the unripe seeds are used as food, calling them "green peas".
Among the variety of shelling pea varieties, breeders single out the most productive pea seeds: "tsarevich", "early-301", "winner", "excellent-33".
To the universal varieties include peas "sugar pod". The fruits of this plant are suitable for eating both when young and when they are more ripe.
Features of sowing pea seeds
If you are going to plant pea seeds for the first time, there are a few things you need to know.
Nodule bacteria have chosen pea roots as a favorable soil for their life activities. These bacteria actively absorb nitrogen.
At the first sowing of peas, fertilizing the soil, instead of a nitrogen-containing composition, you can use a special preparation of the bacterial group - "Nitragin". The norm of the bacterial supplement is 5 g/kg. Such an additive allows you to normalize the development of peas without nitrogen starvation.
Instead of "Nitragin" you can use rotted compost or humus,phosphorus-potassium fertilizers.
On specially prepared soil, the harvest is better and more fertile. Lime can be used as a fertilizer: 300 g/m2with the addition of potassium - 30 g, double superphosphate - 20 g.
Interesting! In the area where peas used to grow, cabbage yields a good harvest in the second year of planting.
Before sowing, yellow pea seeds are soaked in a specially prepared solution with micronutrient fertilizers. Before immersion in the soil, peas are treated with borax, boric acid or ammonium molybdate. This treatment serves as a protective barrier against rot, mold, fungus, repels rodents.
The preparation of the beds for growing peas does not end with fertilizing the soil. It is worth preparing in advance: install supports for adult plants. Many people grow peas and do not know that, while spreading along the ground, the crop does not bring the desired harvest, but it will give birth much more fertile, being in an upright position.
How to sow seeds?
Do you know how to sow peas?
Sowing is carried out in 3-4 line tapes, keeping the distance between the lines up to 16 cm and the tapes - up to 45 cm.
The level of planting seeds in the soil depends on the type of soil. If the site is dominated by clay rocks, then the peas are sown shallowly. In light, washable soils, the seeds are sown deeper.
Important! Keep an eye on the sowing level of pea seeds. With shallow embedding, they can be pecked by pest birds. So that the bed is notattracted the attention of birds, put on the site where the seeds were sown, twigs, crush it with straw or grass.
Technical maturity of the beans depends on the timing of planting and the level of germination. Therefore, sowing is carried out in a short time, while achieving the simultaneous ripeness of each pea pod.
Germination of pea seeds is observed already 14 days after sowing in the ground. Varieties of sugar peas at the beginning of the growing season grow slowly. Weeds quickly clog crops, so plants need to be weeded.
Successful germination of pea seeds is possible under the following conditions: the presence of heat and moisture. An important role is played by the access of light and oxygen. All these factors affect the speed of germination of pea seeds and their further development. He althy and strong seedlings are more resistant to diseases and infections that can affect the crop. The defeat of legumes occurs as a result of a violation of the diet of plants, untimely care. If the soil has been waterlogged, fungal bacteria and mold almost always develop. Common diseases and pests that affect legumes include:
- powdery mildew;
- root rot;
- downy mildew (referred to as downy mildew);
- anthracnose;
- pea aphid;
- nodule weevil.
To prevent diseases in green peas and reduce the number of pests, you need to know how to repel the enemy, but most importantly, follow one rule:take care of the crops.
There is a need to install trellises when the peas grow a little. This will allow the culture to grow upwards without lodging from wind currents. In addition, the trellis is easier to harvest.
Tapes are installed every half a meter along the entire perimeter of the site, if the bed is small, it is completely enclosed.
Crop care consists of weeding and watering.
All types of peas are grown in a similar way.
Pea fruiting
Early-ripening seed peas begin to bear fruit in 4-5 weeks, and late-ripening varieties in 6-7 weeks.
Sowing peas is a multi-collection vegetable crop, the fruiting period of which stretches for up to 6 weeks. Shoulders of sugar and shelled peas are harvested after 1-2 days.
For the entire period of fruiting in comfortable growing conditions, the total yield of sugar and shelling pea blades can reach 5 kg/m2.
Beans are high in calories and he althy. Peas are rich in fiber, protein, starch and sugar, lysine, vitamins and acids. This plant is used in cooking and agriculture.
Growing peas is an entertaining and not too laborious process. This he althy herb is ideal for fresh consumption, preservation and cooking.
Common peas are used to feed goats. Legumes are used to form useful food for birds.
