I'm planning to set up a planter under grow lights for some winter food. I am planning to put snow peas in it, as they keep producing, and are small enough to not take over the kitchen.
Are they a good idea?
I can pollinate with a brush easily if I need to.
The lights are on a timer I can set to whatever I need. The house is heated and they'd be in the kitchen on the counter, lights are hooked to the underside of the cabinet.
Other things going in are probably just herbs: basil, cilantro etc. Small things. Snow peas would be the main crop.
Will they go all winter? Should I stagger the planting if they won't?
Anything I'm missing that would make them fail?
Is this a good/valid idea?
I realized I was calling what I am planting sugar snap peas, when they are snow peas. I have edited my posts and the subject line to fix my error, so if there is confusion farther down the thread, it's my fault
Should work fine, peas do well under grow lights. Main thing is they'll want something to climb even if they're small varieties, they get grabby pretty quick. Worth it for the harvest though, fresh snap peas in January off your kitchen counter is hard to beat.
Peas are our main indoor winter crop but I do them as microgreens. The greens taste like fresh peas and you get more for the work and space.
Biggest thing to keep in mind is that I have found them to do MUCH better in inoculated potting soil than coir or any sterile medium. They really need root partners.
Years ago, I made the observation that peas seemed to be light length dependent for flowering, regardless of the size of the plants (and in my ecosystem, they get *big* - much bigger than they did when I lived in Ontario.
However, more recently, I'm not seeing that behavior. That suggests to me, that modern cultivars are far less fussy about day length. It might definitely be worth looking for a cultivar that quotes a fairly short period from seeding to production. I'm betting they're out there.
M Ljin mentions beans. A quite well behaved short bean are Maxibel Fillet beans. Even they like a little bit of support. They produce a quick flush of beans and then quit permanently, so I all ways plant them in waves every 2 weeks if I'm growing them. If I recall correctly, they're supposed to be 60 days from seeding to picking.
The snow pea seeds I'm planning on using are 60 days to harvest, short, and I have grow lights, they will have a good long day length. Probably about 12 hours. I want the snow peas for continual pick, I do have some short, 60 day beans but they are, like you said, determinate, and will go all at once and that's not what I'm looking for.
I have weird parameters, including bad head space for them, the grow lights are LED strips that I have hooked to the underside of the plate and cup cabinet. So at BEST they have the height of the counter to the cabinet. BUT the problems I had last year stemmed quite a bit from pot size and dirt depth, so I have a bottom watering planter that's 28 inches by 16 or something like that and they'll have at least 6 inches of dirt (maybe more) that I'll have them in, so they'll get even less head room. So plant height and continual pick matter most to me. The rest I can work with.
Pearl Sutton wrote: So at BEST they have the height of the counter to the cabinet. BUT the problems I had last year stemmed quite a bit from pot size and dirt depth, so I have a bottom watering planter that's 28 inches by 16 or something like that and they'll have at least 6 inches of dirt (maybe more) that I'll have them in, so they'll get even less head room. So plant height and continual pick matter most to me. The rest I can work with. :D
Yes - I have both read and experienced that most veggies want a decent depth and breadth of soil to grow in. The big advantage of peas is that they're groupies - much more so than beans. Peas actually *like* having pea friends to climb and share root space with.
Please post pictures when you get them going. I have tried growing indoor winter lettuce, but they really want way more light than my grow lights can manage. I should maybe look for short harvest peas and try them as an experiment. In my ecosystem, November and December have heavy clouds and no light, so something green really helps!
Ok, so, after changing the subject and editing stuff... I had already ordered snow peas when I realized the sugar snaps WERE what I wanted. So half of it is now planted with sugar snaps, the snow peas will take the other end when they get here. Doing both. I'm claiming it's an experiment to see what works best in the house! Yeah... that's the ticket....
So peas are along the back half, the heart things are for them to climb, each heart thing has 6 peas around it (patterned like dice spots, not a circle.) The front half I divided into 5 parts, and from left to right I have planted fenugreek, basil, cilantro, dill and caraway, all for eating the greens, not expecting them to seed.
I had tinfoil on that wall already, added an angled piece of mirror under the cabinet, to bounce the light around more. There are four 12 inch LED strips under there, on a timer that is turning on about 6:30 and off about 8:30. The mirror adds to the visual chaos in this picture, couldn't help that. So this is planted and hopefully will end up being way overseeded :D
Edit:
....and I realized that I paid money for the LEDs and timer, one of the packets of herbs and the packet of peas that are coming. All the rest came into my life for free. I want bonus points !! :D
Snow peas and sugar snaps! How big do they grow in a hydroponic system? (I assume you're using hydroponics, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong 😉). This sounds really cool. Let us know what your yield is. I am very interested.
ETA: Okay, I see you're doing a wicking system and not hydroponics, per se. But I am still interested in them.
Tyra Lightwolf wrote:Snow peas and sugar snaps! How big do they grow in a hydroponic system? (I assume you're using hydroponics, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong 😉). This sounds really cool. Let us know what your yield is. I am very interested.
ETA: Okay, I see you're doing a wicking system and not hydroponics, per se. But I am still interested in them.
Dirt, yes.
I don't know, both types are theoretically short/dwarf, as there's a cabinet above it. I'm planning long slow yield, both types will keep producing, not heavily. I wanted snacks :D And fresh herbs for flavor s in my cooking.
I knew I wasn't going to pull a lot of production out of the space, so I'm going for quality in small amounts.
Dirt, yes.
I don't know, both types are theoretically short/dwarf, as there's a cabinet above it. I'm planning long slow yield, both types will keep producing, not heavily. I wanted snacks And fresh herbs for flavor s in my cooking.
I knew I wasn't going to pull a lot of production out of the space, so I'm going for quality in small amounts.
I'm now curious about them being dwarf. What kind are they? I will have to look for the seeds to try out!
Multiple types, look up "dwarf peas" or "dwarf snow peas" or "dwarf sugar snap peas" I picked what I happened to get free or cheap. Are they the best for this? I have no clue, I have never tried it before :D
So look at all the options (there are a LOT) and see what fits your parameters. If I had these outside these varieties are absolutely not what I'd want, fungal problems start low in this area, I trellis everything up off the ground I can. But I haven't grown under a cabinet before. So, experiments!
Pearl Sutton wrote:Multiple types, look up "dwarf peas" or "dwarf snow peas" or "dwarf sugar snap peas" I picked what I happened to get free or cheap. Are they the best for this? I have no clue, I have never tried it before So look at all the options (there are a LOT) and see what fits your parameters. If I had these outside these varieties are absolutely not what I'd want, fungal problems start low in this area, I trellis everything up off the ground I can. But I haven't grown under a cabinet before. So, experiments!
Oooh! I will definitely have to. Tried sugar snaps outside, but they didn't grow well because of where I'm at. But indoors would be a different matter entirely. Thanks for the tip!
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Description: Fenugreek is up!")
