Oregon Sugar Pod
The mangetout to grow here. Flat pods picked young, a long cropping run, and it keeps going into a damp August.
Mangetout are picked flat and eaten whole, pod and all, before the peas inside have swelled. Oregon Sugar Pod is the variety most Irish suppliers stock and the one most people mean when they say mangetout. It crops over a long period rather than in one burst, the pods are large and tender, and it is usually sold as having some tolerance of powdery mildew, which is the reason a mangetout row here can still be producing in late August.
Quick facts
- Botanical name
- Pisum sativum
- Type
- Open pollinated
- Category
- Mangetout
- Difficulty
- Easy, good first crop
- Hardiness
- Hardy, takes Irish frost
- In Ireland
- Grows outdoors unprotected
- Germination
- 7 to 14 days at 10 to 22C
- Sowing depth
- 5cm
- Spacing
- 5cm apart, 60cm between rows
- Height
- 1.05m
- Position
- Full sun
- Containers
- Grows well in pots
- Sowing to harvest
- 11 to 16 weeks
- Harvest
- June to September
Sowing and harvest calendar for Oregon Sugar Pod
Months shaded below are the reliable windows for Irish conditions.
Where to buy Oregon Sugar Pod pea seeds in Ireland
Irish suppliers that stock this, so postage stays domestic and seed arrives in time to sow. These are plain links, not paid placements.
Order online
- Quickcrop Irish Ships across Ireland Ballymote based, lists sowing and harvest months per product and ships across Ireland. Visit Quickcrop , Co. Sligo
- Brown Envelope Seeds Irish Organic seed grown in West Cork Grows and saves its own certified organic seed in West Cork, so the varieties are already adapted to Irish conditions. Visit Brown Envelope Seeds , Co. Cork
Garden centres and mixed retailers
- Mr Middleton Irish Posted from Dublin Mail order arm of a long established Mary Street shop, carries the familiar named varieties the organic specialists skip. Visit Mr Middleton , Co. Dublin
- The Organic Centre Irish Organic seed from Rossinver, Co. Leitrim Registered Irish charity at Rossinver with a 19 acre demonstration garden behind the seed catalogue. Visit The Organic Centre , Co. Leitrim
Why it suits Ireland
Mangetout suit a short Irish season better than shelling peas do, because you are harvesting the pod rather than waiting for the seed inside to fill. That takes weeks off the time from sowing to the first picking, and it means a late sowing that would never mature as a garden pea can still give a crop.
The long cropping run is the other advantage. Irish summers are not reliable in any one month, so a variety that produces steadily from late June to September gives you more usable weather to work with than one that concentrates everything into a fortnight.
The weakness here is height. At a metre plus, this is the variety most likely to be flattened, and a windy or coastal Irish garden needs the support planned properly rather than improvised. Sited against a fence or in the lee of a hedge it is much happier.
Growing notes
Sow from late March to June, 5cm deep and 5cm apart, in a flat drill with 75cm to a metre between rows. Because the plants are tall, wide row spacing is worth the ground it costs: it keeps air moving, which delays mildew, and it stops one row shading the next.
Erect the netting or mesh before the plants are 15cm tall. Tendrils grip readily once they find something, and threading a collapsed row back up afterwards breaks stems.
Water at the base during flowering and cropping. Dry roots plus humid air is the combination that brings powdery mildew, and this variety will hold out longer than most but not indefinitely.
Pick every two days from about ten to twelve weeks after sowing. Pods want to go into a pan the same day: mangetout lose their snap in the fridge faster than a shelling pea loses its sweetness.
If a row does start to mildew badly in late August, pick everything usable, cut the plants off at ground level and compost the tops away from the vegetable beds.
Common questions
When exactly do I pick a mangetout?
When the pod is 6 to 8cm long, still flat, and the peas inside show only as faint bumps. That is earlier than instinct suggests, and the window is short. Left three or four days longer the pod develops a fibrous inner lining and the flavour goes flat, at which point you may as well let it fill properly and shell it as a garden pea. Pick every second day once cropping starts, and pick everything, because a pod left to mature tells the plant to stop flowering.
How tall does it get and what support does it need?
Around a metre, sometimes a little more in a good year, and it needs a real structure rather than pea sticks. Rigid mesh or netting stretched between stakes driven at least 30cm into the ground is the minimum. A metre of pea foliage soaked by Irish rain and hit by an Atlantic gust in July puts serious load on a support, and a row that goes over rarely stands up again.
Does it crop for longer than a garden pea?
Considerably, provided you keep picking. Because you harvest the pods before the seed matures, the plant never receives the signal that it has finished reproducing, so it keeps flowering. A single well-supported April sowing can produce from late June into September in Ireland. A shelling pea sown the same day will be finished by the middle of July.
More peas to consider
Meteor
Open pollinated / First early, round seeded
The one to sow in November for peas in May, and the safest pea for a cold, wet or exposed Irish garden.
Growing notes and stockistsKelvedon Wonder
AGMOpen pollinated / Early wrinkled
The all-rounder. Sow it every three weeks from late March and it will keep a household in peas all summer.
Growing notes and stockistsHurst Green Shaft
AGMOpen pollinated / Maincrop wrinkled
Grow this one for eating. Long pods carrying nine or ten sweet peas, and enough disease resistance to last into an Irish August.
Growing notes and stockistsSugar Ann
AGMOpen pollinated / Sugarsnap
The sugarsnap for a small or windy garden, since it is short, quick to crop and finishes before the worst of the mildew.
Growing notes and stockists