Pea
Pisum sativum
The crop where home growing makes the most obvious difference to flavour, because the sugars in a pea start converting to starch within hours of picking. Peas are a cool-season crop that resents heat, so the season is spring and early summer rather than high summer, and the practical questions are support, mice, and picking often enough.
- Position
- Full sun or Partial shade
- Water
- moderate demand
- Drainage
- Moisture-retentive, Free-draining
- Grows to
- 45–180 cm × 20–30 cm
- Hardiness
- H4
- Harvest
- June to August
- Difficulty
- Straightforward
Described view
A row of young pea plants climbing netting stretched between canes, tendrils gripping the mesh
August
Harvest
Pea’s year
Resolved for United Kingdom (general). Every window is stored against a climate event rather than a date, so a late frost pocket runs later than the band shows. What else August calls for.
| Activity | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sow outdoors | March. | April. | May. | June. | July. | |||||||
| Harvest | June. | July. | August. |
Names that cause confusion
pea — Mangetout, sugar snap and shelling peas are all Pisum sativum, differing in whether the pod is edible and when it is picked. Growing them is identical.
Timing that travels
The band above resolves this plant's windows into months for one region. These are the windows themselves, stored against a climate event rather than a date — which is the form that survives being carried to a colder garden, a frost pocket, or next year.
- Sow outdoors0–14 weeks after the soil becoming workable, successionally, every three weeks until early summer
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — sowing
Checked 2026-08-13
Conditions it needs
- Light
- Full sun, Partial shade
- Direct sun
- 5 hours a day or more
- Frost
- HardySourced guidanceDepends on conditions
- Hardiness rating
- H4 (RHS)
- Grows best at
- 13–18 °C
- Germinates at
- 5–24 °C
- Soil
- Loam, Clay, Silt
- Soil pH
- 6–7.5
- Drainage
- Moisture-retentive, Free-draining
- Water needs
- moderate
- Drought
- poor tolerance
- Waterlogging
- poor tolerance
- Heat
- poor tolerance
- Wind and exposure
- moderate tolerance
Where these figures come from
- LightSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — position
Checked 2026-08-13
- Direct sunHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- FrostSourced guidanceDepends on conditionshigh confidence
Applies when: Young plants take light frost; the flowers and pods do not.
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — hardiness
Checked 2026-08-13
- Hardiness ratingSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: RHS hardiness ratings
Checked 2026-08-13
- Grows best atHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
A cool-season crop. Above about 25 °C flowering and pod set fall away.
- University of Minnesota Extension — University of Minnesota: Growing peas
Checked 2026-08-13
- Germinates atSourced guidancehigh confidence
- OSU Extension Service — Oregon State University: Vegetable seed germination temperatures
Checked 2026-08-13
- SoilHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- Soil pHSourced guidancehigh confidence
- University of Minnesota Extension — University of Minnesota: Soil pH for vegetable crops
Checked 2026-08-13
- DrainageHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- Water needsHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
Water matters most from flowering onwards, when the pods are filling.
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- DroughtHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- WaterloggingHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- HeatHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
- Home and Garden Information Center — Clemson Cooperative Extension: Peas — culture
Checked 2026-08-13
- Wind and exposureHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
Tall cultivars on supports catch a lot of wind; dwarf ones are much steadier.
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
On your soil
Computed by comparing this plant's recorded requirements against each soil's recorded characteristics. A recorded horticultural fact overrides the comparison where GrowingHQ holds one.
| Soil | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy clay | Works, with one condition | Pea will crop on heavy clay, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. For a crop lifted before winter the risk is not rot but the season: waterlogged ground is cold and unworkable in spring, so sowing is late and germination patchy.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse. |
| Sandy | Works, with one condition | Pea will crop on sandy, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It has little drought tolerance and this soil dries out fast — it will check and bolt in the first dry spell without watering.Water and mulch will carry it through. On this soil the watering is not optional in a dry spell, which is the difference between a crop and a failure. |
| Chalky and alkaline | Works, with one condition | Pea will crop on chalky and alkaline, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It has little drought tolerance and this soil dries out fast — it will check and bolt in the first dry spell without watering.Water and mulch will carry it through. On this soil the watering is not optional in a dry spell, which is the difference between a crop and a failure. |
| Loam | Prefers this soil | Loam suits Pea as it stands: The pH suits it: it wants 6 to 7.5, and this soil is in that range. The free drainage is exactly what it wants. Loam is among the soils it is recorded as suiting. The soil holds moisture, which saves a great deal of watering. |
| Silty | Prefers this soil | Silty suits Pea as it stands: The pH suits it: it wants 6 to 7.5, and this soil is in that range. The free drainage is exactly what it wants. Silt is among the soils it is recorded as suiting. The soil holds moisture, which saves a great deal of watering. |
| Peaty and acid | Works, with one condition | Pea will crop on peaty and acid, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. For a crop lifted before winter the risk is not rot but the season: waterlogged ground is cold and unworkable in spring, so sowing is late and germination patchy.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse. |
| Shallow over rock | Works, with one condition | Pea will crop on shallow over rock, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It has little drought tolerance and this soil dries out fast — it will check and bolt in the first dry spell without watering.Water and mulch will carry it through. On this soil the watering is not optional in a dry spell, which is the difference between a crop and a failure. |
| Made ground and urban soil | Works, with one condition | Pea will crop on made ground and urban soil, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. For a crop lifted before winter the risk is not rot but the season: waterlogged ground is cold and unworkable in spring, so sowing is late and germination patchy.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse. |
Not sure which you have? Four hand tests will settle it.
Space and spacing
- Mature height
- 45–180 cmSourced guidanceDepends on conditions
- Mature spread
- 20–30 cm
- Rooting depth
- 45 cm
- Spacing
- 5–8 cm apart
- Row spacing
- 45–60 cm
Where these figures come from
- Mature heightSourced guidanceDepends on conditionshigh confidence
Applies when: Entirely cultivar-dependent: dwarf types reach 45–60 cm and need only twiggy support, tall ones exceed 1.8 m and need a proper structure.
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — cultivars
Checked 2026-08-13
- Mature spreadHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- Rooting depthHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
- USU Extension — Utah State University: Vegetable rooting depths
Checked 2026-08-13
- SpacingSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — spacing
Checked 2026-08-13
- Row spacingSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — spacing
Checked 2026-08-13
In a container
- Minimum volume
- 20 litres or more
- Minimum depth
- 25 cm
Where the container figures come from
- Minimum volumeSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas in containers
Checked 2026-08-13
- Minimum depthHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
A dwarf cultivar in a trough works well; a tall one needs both the depth and a support the pot can carry.
Where and how you can grow it
Each way of growing is assessed separately, and “not assessed” is a real answer rather than a gap we have filled in with a guess.
| Method | Suitability | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Open ground | Well suitedsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | Support appropriate to the cultivar's height |
| Traditional dug bed | Well suitedsourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13 | |
| Raised bed | Well suitedsourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13 | A support structure the bed can anchor |
| Polytunnel | Well suitedsourceSourced guidancemoderate confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | For early sowings and for pea shoots. |
| Container | WorkablesourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | A dwarf cultivar; 20 litres or more |
| Vertical growing | WorkablesourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence A natural climber; the limitation is rooting volume rather than the habit. No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13 | |
| Windowsill | WorkablesourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence Only for pea shoots — a tray of dense-sown peas cut at 10 cm. Not for a pod crop. No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13 | Grown as shoots, cut young |
| Hydroponics | WorkablesourceGrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence Workable, with the same nitrogen-fixing objection as beans and one of its own: peas want cool roots, and an indoor reservoir in summer is the warmest water in the house.
Checked 2026-08-13 | |
| Greenhouse | WorkablesourceSourced guidancemoderate confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 |
Growing it
- SowingSow about 4 cm deep in a flat-bottomed drill, several seeds across. Mice take pea seed readily, and a row that never appears has usually been eaten rather than failed.4–5 cm
- SupportPut supports in at sowing rather than later. Peas climb by tendrils and need something to catch within a few centimetres of where they are growing; a plant that has flopped does not climb back up.
- HarvestingPick from the bottom of the plant upwards, every two or three days. Peas left to mature on the plant tell it to stop flowering.
- WateringPeas need most water at flowering and while the pods fill; before that they are better slightly dry, which encourages the roots down. A dry spell at flowering is what gives half-empty pods, and no amount of watering afterwards puts the peas back in.
- FeedingPeas fix their own nitrogen and should not be given a nitrogen feed — it produces foliage and delays the crop. Ground with compost worked in is enough. Leave the roots in the soil when clearing the crop rather than pulling them.
Where this guidance comes from
- SowingSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — sowing
Checked 2026-08-13
- SupportSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — supporting
Checked 2026-08-13
- HarvestingSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — harvesting
Checked 2026-08-13
- WateringSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — watering
Checked 2026-08-13
- FeedingSourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — cultivation
Checked 2026-08-13
Is it worth putting under cover?
Whether it will grow there is on the methods table above. This is whether the space is well spent, which is a different question and usually the one being asked.
| Structure | What protection is worth | What decides it |
|---|---|---|
| Greenhouse | Extends the seasonsourceGrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence What protection is worth for this crop, judged against the same standard as every other record in this file.
Checked 2026-08-13 | Height and support. Even a dwarf pea wants a metre of netting, and the crop is over by the time the greenhouse is needed for tomatoes. |
| Polytunnel | Extends the seasonsourceGrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence What protection is worth for this crop, judged against the same standard as every other record in this file.
Checked 2026-08-13 | Height and support, which a tunnel has more of. |
Growing it without soil
Nearly anything can be grown in a soilless system by somebody with enough equipment. The useful question is whether it is worth it, in which technique, and what goes wrong.
Succeeds when the conditions listed here are met and fails when they are not. The conditions are the answer, not a caveat.
source
GrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence
Workable, with the same nitrogen-fixing objection as beans and one of its own: peas want cool roots, and an indoor reservoir in summer is the warmest water in the house.
- GrowingHQ editorial synthesis — GrowingHQ
Checked 2026-08-13
Pea shoots, cut young for salad, are a genuinely good soilless crop and a completely different use of the same seed.
Techniques that suit it
- Drip-fed mediumSolution is dripped into an inert medium around each plant. The most forgiving technique and the one that suits large, long-season, heavy crops.
- Ebb and flowA bed of inert medium floods and drains on a timer. The medium holds moisture between floods, which makes it far more tolerant of interruption than NFT.
source
Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- Root space
- Moderate, with netting or canes for even the dwarf types.
- pH band
- 5.5–6.5
Where these figures come from
- Root spaceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- pH bandSourced guidancehigh confidence
Outside roughly this band, individual nutrients become unavailable even when they are present in the solution — which is why a crop can starve in a full reservoir.
- Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Hydroponic solution management — pH
Checked 2026-08-13
What actually goes wrong
- Warm solution. Above roughly 22 °C the water holds much less dissolved oxygen and root disease follows quickly, which is why summer is harder than winter in an indoor system.
source
Sourced guidancemoderate confidence
- Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Solution temperature and dissolved oxygen
Checked 2026-08-13
- Pump or power failure. In nutrient film and aeroponics there is no reserve at the roots, so a crop can be lost within hours; medium-based systems hold moisture and are far more forgiving.
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
- Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Hydroponic system design — failure modes
Checked 2026-08-13
No nutrient recipes here
GrowingHQ records pH bands, which are measurable properties of nutrient availability, and deliberately records no EC or PPM targets and no mixing instructions. Published targets vary by cultivar, growth stage, water source and technique, and the figures that apply to your system are on the product you bought.
Harvesting
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — timing
Checked 2026-08-13
- When it is readyShelling peas are ready when the pods are well filled but still bright and glossy; dull, matt pods are past their best. Mangetout are picked flat before the peas swell, sugar snaps when the pod is round and crisp.
- How to pick itHold the stem with one hand and pull the pod with the other; the stems snap easily.
- Keeping itEat or freeze within hours. The sugar-to-starch conversion after picking is why a shop pea does not taste like a garden one, and it starts immediately.
Where the harvest guidance comes from
- When it is readySourced guidancehigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Peas — harvesting
Checked 2026-08-13
- How to pick itHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
- Keeping itSourced guidancehigh confidence
- University of Minnesota Extension — University of Minnesota: Harvesting and storing peas
Checked 2026-08-13
Keep picking
What goes wrong
| Problem | How often | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pea and bean weevil | commonsourceSourced guidancehigh confidence
Checked 2026-08-13 | Semicircular notches around the leaf edges of spring seedlings. Cosmetic once the plants are climbing. |
| Slugs and snails | commonsourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13 | On seedlings, along with mice and pigeons. |
| Powdery mildew | commonsourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13 | On late sowings in dry summers. |
| Aphids | occasionalsourceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13 |
Start from what you can see
Grown with, grown after, grown instead
Every relationship states its mechanism. A pairing nobody can explain is a pairing nobody has checked, and it does not go in.
- Follows on fromKaleLegumes host nitrogen-fixing rhizobia in root nodules, and leaving the roots in the ground when the tops are cleared returns some of that nitrogen to the soil for a following leafy crop.
Sourced guidanceDepends on conditionshigh confidence
Applies when: The benefit is real but modest, and only if the ROOTS are left in the ground — pulling the whole plant removes most of it. It does not replace feeding a hungry brassica crop.
- Garden Organic — Garden Organic (Henry Doubleday Research Association): Crop rotation and green manures
Checked 2026-08-13
- Same rotation groupBroad beanBoth Fabaceae with shared root diseases including foot and root rots, so they belong in the same rotation group.
source
Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Crop rotation
Checked 2026-08-13
Safety and edibility
- Which parts are ediblePeas, pea pods on the relevant cultivars, and pea shoots are all edible. The ornamental sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) is a different plant and its seeds are not edible.
source
Horticultural consensushigh confidence
- Royal Horticultural Society: Potentially harmful garden plants
Checked 2026-08-13
Do not eat pods or seed from sweet peas grown for their flowers.
Sources for this page
Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board · GrowingHQ editorial synthesis · Home and Garden Information Center · OSU Extension Service · Royal Horticultural Society · University of Minnesota Extension · USU Extension
Each figure on this page carries its own citation, under the “where these figures come from” note in its section. Record last reviewed 2026-08-13.
If something is wrong with it
- White powdery coating on leaves — 2 causes GrowingHQ holds for pea
Something else? Work through it with the diagnostic tool.