I know it seem like the newbi is always asking questions and nothing much else but as a learner questions abound and you folks just seem to know the answers so here goes.

I was lucky enough to get a bag full of yellow split peas,uncracked and still a whole seed with a brown husk around them and it's my understanding that you need them intact to be able to sow them...Is this true?

I really want to grow these as a quality source of storable food and of course to collect the seed to grow on.I believe they are a winter crop as opposed to lentils which I'm told are a summer crop but am not sure and don't want to plant out of season for obvious reasons.

Any help here is always appreciated.
Thanks Glenn.

I'm not sure they need to be fully intact (with husk and all) but they can't be split if you want them to grow, I don't think. I've planted a few different types of beans and peas from the grocery store and they did fine. They typically sprout easily, too, and if you want to test yours, you could do that (in a wet paper towel or something). But peas are generally not hard to grow, in my experience anyway.

Seasonal appropriateness will depend on how cold it gets and length of the day where you are during winter. Maybe an Australian will chime in here...

I'm really glad you started this thread. I love cooking and eating yellow split peas. I bet they would taste even better if I grew them myself.

Do you have a photo of the peas for us to see? I've never seen them un-split before.

I know almost nothing about growing them, but I am looking forward to learning from others here.

Fava Beans, however, I know a bit about growing. I've been working with them for a few years now. I usually plant mine in Oct, but sometimes as late as the end of Feb. We have mild winters here, so if you have a proper winter, then the usual instructions are to plant them as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring. Favas need cold weather to set their flowers and stop making beans once the weather warms up.

Ops... pre coffee brain seems to have fava beans on the mind.

Lentils. Lentils I plant in the early spring, about the same time I plant munching peas (green garden peas). They seem willing to survive a frost so long as they aren't too tall. I haven't tried overwintering them yet, but I imagine we could here where the winter is mild.

Peas in general like colder weather for germinating than something like beans or tomatoes. If you have enough seed, it might be worth planting 4 or 6 seeds in the soil at different times of year to find out what works best in your conditions. There are a lot of general ideas on when the absolutely most bestest time ever to do something is... however, they aren't necessarily growing in the exact same conditions as you. So it's good to try for yourself if you can, and treat the rest as more guidelines than rules.

I'll have a read through my books, but hopefully someone from your part of the world can chime in more about growing these peas.

I can throw up a picture R Ranson as soon as the sun comes up...it's early morning at the moment.

I know the growing season for them is close as we were out grading/cleaning the seed from a farmers silo and that's how I got them they don't usually do this until they are close to sowing.

Here ya go R Ranson sorry if the quality isn't all that good as I'm new to this photo thing.

Wow, that's neat. Thanks for the photo. I never knew they looked like that.

Strange, they look a lot like the medieval chickpeas I grow.

I can't wait to see what the leaves look like when they are growing. Looks like you have a nice amount to play with.

Yeah I got a bit over 4lb of 'em R.R .

We only have 2ac's and the veg patch is only about 160 sqm's so far but I'm trying to grow as much long term storable foods as I can while growing food to eat as well...we do have more space to grow stuff but our 3 sheep free range on the place and if it aint fenced they eat it LOL.I'm still hoping someone from here might shed some light on how they are grown...best practice's and all.

Glad ya liked the pic's .

Glenn.

So how do you hull and split the peas for consumption once grown?

That's gonna be the hard one Mick.I got these from the end process a Mobile Seed Cleaning Machine which I work on seasonally and after all the ups/downs and tumbling through several grading barrel's they came out with the hull still on and obviously un-split.I think the trick would be to split the whole seed(maybe a stone grinder) and the hull would come away and then winnow but I haven't really looked that far into it yet.I sure would like to know how it was done in the Middle Eastern countries way back.