Did I get descent germination: Check
Tasty Pea Shoots for my efforts: Double Check
Pea shoots and tendrils are a trendy addition to salads and stirfries. I've noticed that most recommended varieties are those with edible pods which may be because the shoots are less fiborous or sugary. Some common recommendations include Oregan Sugar Pod and Cascadia. If you are very interested in the tendrils then hypertendril varieties such as Sugar Lace will provide lots of those.
I just used a common shelling pea: Green Arrow. It took two weeks to grow these babies to usable size in a south facing window.
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Article on Pea Shoots from the Cooperative Extension Washington State University
Daily Gardener has a nice pictorial on growing snow pea shoots
If you are interested in peas, then check out Daughter of the Soil, a blog with the same obsession. Scroll down this post for a look at a hypertendril pea shoot.
Agriahaiti - Ontario Asian Seed source, sells a variety for pea shoots. Interestingly, they say it has no or few tendrils. They are currently out of stock of Dou Miao 1
8 comments:
I love pea shoots, I have to start seeds TODAY! Thanks for the reminder.
Glad I found you, your blog is full of info on wild vegetables, currently I'm look for kalimeris indica L. "Indian Aster", it grows wild in Asia, I haven't been able to find a source for it here in the U.S.
Pea shoots are wonderful. A US seed source for them is Kitazawa Seeds. I'm growing a sugar snap variety at the moment which is supposed to have tasty shoots but I haven't tried them. The plants are pretty ratty at the moment so I'm not tempted to try them now.
Pea shoots are great. I harvested some from my fall pea plants, which usually fail to mature around our parts. They say that snow pea varieties make for the best shoots. When harvesting from other pea varieties, I've noticed that the best time to harvest is before the leaves begin to unfold.
They look good. I have never tried a pea shoot before. I must give them a try this spring.
I've never eaten pea shoots before. I never want to stop my peas from growing more peas so am unwilling to pinch them out. But growing them in the winter seems like a great solution.
I also like them in a simple soup, like a miso broth. Yum.
I often feel guilty nibbling the shoots when I like the peas more.
Thanks for your blog. I have been reading it for probably a year now! Anyway, I just tried growing pea tendrils in one of those flat black ubiquitous trays to start seeds, and it worked great. I used a snow pea variety and sowed them really thickly. They only took around a week to start sending up sprouts. I waited until they were about 6-8 inches and then cut (maybe a month?). I shortly stir-fry mine. They need a lot of light I noticed.
An interesting idea! I just read a similar blog about sunflower shoots grown indoors for salads. This is a great way to have fresh greens all winter long!
The chickens will probably benefit from this too.
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