"Lean on Pea" aka: growing peas on other plants?

We all know about three sisters companion planting for pole beans, but I'm curious if anyone has any insight or ideas for climbable companions for peas. Given their preference for cool spring growing, peas don't seem well suited for growing with corn. Maybe some kind of tall flower? Sunchokes are my leading idea right now, but I'm open to pretty much anything.

Additional info:
-these will be drying peas for soup, so everything can be cut down together at the end of the growing season rather than needing to reach into the mess for harvest
-I'm in south eastern BC, zone 6 ish

I think along the same lines and have tried having them grow onto whatever dead stalk or the south face of shrubs, i made some willow racks as well last year in differing locations in my garden. They usually do best kind of holding onto each other in the end i found. more group like plantings than one row in front of the sunchokes/topinambour. But for some reason i suck at peas and never end up with more than i started with.
I have used mixed varieties from a landrace group, because i'm convinved some will be naturally better climbers than others and bit by bit the population will become dominated by those climber champions if you get my thinking.
i've started doing the same with climbing beans into fruit trees, mixed varieties and some were really much better at it than others.
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Welcome Billy!
I wondered the same thing and tried broad beans, another cool climate legume, with my peas. The peas just lay down and didn't bother climbing I'm giving up now on climbing drying beans and will save the clmbing version for my green peas. I'm going to select for self supporting field peas for drying that (hopefully) just hold their pods high enough to dry for harvest. I need short season ones as it gets too damp here into September for seeds to dry well; mild but wet!

In my (very limited) experience sunchokes grow too densely to let much else grow in between them. If you grow peas that don't grow past a meter you can sow them with oats or barley. I'm no expert, but my impression is that few "soup pea" varieties grow very tall?

As far as I know, the two traditional ways to grow drying peas here in Norway is with grains (for support, and to harvest some grain from the same field) or by themselves - the pea plants will cling to each other and form a big mat, which *may* lodge. I guess this depends on variety, soil and weather. With hand tools they could still be harvested, although more peas might be lost to mice, rot or sprouting if conditions were not good.

I've only grown peas with oats on a very small scale, but it worked well. I don't remember the proportions, but I think there was roughly 30-40 cm between the pea plants and 5-10 cm between the oats. They can be sown at the same time, grow at more or less the same rate, and are ready for harvest about the same time - presumably some varieties will work together better than others, but if you sow a mix and harvest and resow them together, suitable varieties and crosses will likely dominate after just a few generations. Especially if your field or bed is small enough to cull completely unsuitable ones before harvest, for instance those that do not compete well, set very few seeds, are susceptible to fungus, grow too well and pull down other plants etc.

I've been thinking along these lines too, and will try to grow peas with the sunchokes this year. I'm hopeful, since I've heard of people growing beans up sunflowers, and co-growing sunchokes and aardaker (Lathyrus tuberosus, another climbing leguminous plant). However, as E notes, the sunchokes do tend to grow quite densely, so maybe peas would mainly be a thing to grow along the edges of the patch? I'll report back once I know how it goes.

Thanks everyone, this is good info! I haven't explored growing grains yet, so that wasn't even on my radar, but I'll definitely be looking into the oats now

To anyone who does try growing peas up their sunchokes (or anything else)... I'd love to hear updates or see photos.

Any perennial that is bare in the spring could host pea plants.
I tend to only use peas as a haphazard "cover crop", sowing them into any bed or container,secure in the knowledge they will fade in the heat of summer.

If you put the sunchokes in a container,and sink that container halfway into the ground, you can limit their spread/density  and make harvesting them easier.


If you have a source of elderberry cuttings you can use them as stakes for a season,then transplant them at the end of the season.
I have done this with tomatoes.

So I watch a lot of Chinese "rural village lifestyle" type youtubes.  One of the things I've seen that work for their climate(s) is following corn with peas.  When harvesting their corn (maize), they leave the stalks standing and just break the tops off around chest height.  Then they plant peas or other climbers in that field--sometimes right away, in climates with the kind of winter that allows that, or in spring.  

(If I have time later I'll try finding one of the videos, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it in a Dianxi Xiaoge video, among others)

I have also grown winter wheat companion planted with peas, I don't know if spring wheat would work well, it definately wouldnt in my climate. This companion planting works well but at a wider spacing, I have found good success with 20cm apart with 35cm in rows.
I tried broadcasting the seeds but that worked terribly, the wheat lodged and some of the peas were outcompeted.  so if you go down this route, stick with rows.

Last year I thought it would be neat to grow peas up my giant sunflowers along the garden fence- they’d grow up the stalks instead of the fence and I would lose less to the critters forever nosing in on the other side. Forgetting that sunflowers are said to emit allelopathic toxins that stunt or kill surrounding plants, I did it anyway. The sunflowers grew great, but the poor peas, while alive, did not thrive as they usually do in my garden. They were sickly and produced a fraction of the pods.  I won’t forget that particular sunflower fact again!
PS- I've not grown sunchokes myself but they are in the same genus as sunflower and said to have the same allelopathic tendencies. Something to note if you do try it. Good luck with all!