Pea Seeds in Ireland

For most of the country, late March into April is the first sensible outdoor sowing, and then every three weeks until the end of June for a continuous supply. February sowings are a lottery outdoors because Irish soil at that point is cold and usually saturated, so the seed rots or the mice find it before it moves. If you want peas early, sow in February in guttering or root trainers in a porch, greenhouse or cold frame and plant the whole row out in April. Sowings made after the end of June rarely fill their pods before the light goes in September.

Yes, in the milder parts, and it gives you peas in late May or early June, several weeks ahead of a spring sowing. Sow a hardy round-seeded variety such as Meteor or Douce Provence in late October or November on free-draining ground, ideally a raised bed, and cover with a cloche or fleece over winter. The risk in Ireland is almost never the cold, it is waterlogging: peas sitting in wet soil all winter will rot. On heavy midlands clay or anywhere prone to standing water it is not worth attempting, and February in a gutter under cover achieves nearly the same thing with far less risk.

Take the seed out of the ground entirely. Sowing into lengths of plastic guttering filled with compost, kept in a greenhouse, porch or cold frame, and then sliding the intact row into a shallow trench when the plants are a few centimetres tall is the standard Irish workaround and it works. If you sow direct, sow deeper than feels right at a full 5cm, cover the drill with chicken wire pinned down at the edges, and remember that the longer the seed sits in cold soil the longer the mice have to find it. Warmer soil means faster germination and less time exposed.

Generally no, and it does more harm than good in Irish conditions. A soaked pea swells and its coat splits, which makes it far more likely to rot in the cold wet soil it is going into, and it is more attractive to soil fungi. Peas take up water perfectly well on their own. The only situation where a short soak of a couple of hours helps is a late sowing into genuinely dry summer soil, which does not happen often here.

Yes, all of them, whatever the packet says. Even a 45cm dwarf variety will lie flat after an Irish squall, and once the plants are on the ground the pods rot and the mildew arrives. Put the support in when you sow: twiggy hazel or birch pea sticks pushed in along the row for dwarf types, and rigid mesh or netting stretched between stout stakes for anything over 60cm. Mangetout and sugarsnap varieties reaching a metre or more need proper stakes driven well in, because a wet pea crop in wind carries a lot of load.

They fix nitrogen, yes, through bacteria in the nodules on their roots, but the benefit to the next crop is more modest than it is usually made out to be, because most of the fixed nitrogen ends up in the peas and pods you carry off. What you can capture is worth having, though. When the crop finishes, cut the plants off at ground level and compost the tops rather than pulling the whole thing up, so the nodules stay in the soil to break down. Follow peas with a leafy crop such as cabbage, kale or leeks, which will use what is released.