Garden peaPisum sativum

The pea is a cool spring vegetable: it grows between 10 and 20 °C and suffers as soon as July heats up. Choose a bed that is sunny in March but is not the hottest corner of the garden in June; light afternoon shade suits it. The soil must drain quickly: ground that stays waterlogged after the March rains rots the seeds. Run the rows north to south so the supports do not shade the neighbours. Avoid proximity to onions and garlic, and leave three years before returning to the same spot.

The pea is content with moderately rich soil, provided it is loose and not too acidic. Prepare the bed in autumn by loosening with a broadfork, then cover it with dead leaves or a mulch that you remove in February to let the soil warm up. Mature compost, a shovelful per square metre, is enough; fresh manure is out. In the heavy, acidic soils of the Ardennes or the Condroz, a handful of lime or wood ash per square metre in autumn noticeably improves germination. Rake to a fine tilth before sowing to draw even drills.

Sow as soon as the ground can be worked without sticking to your boots, often between 5 and 20 March in Belgium, with a hardy round-seeded variety. Wrinkled-seeded varieties, which are sweeter, are sown from April. Stagger three sowings a fortnight apart until mid-May; after that, July heat hardens the peas and powdery mildew takes hold. Draw drills four centimetres deep and drop a seed every three centimetres, in paired rows twenty centimetres apart, with sixty centimetres between each pair. Sow into drained soil, without watering afterwards if the ground is moist.

If pigeons and voles are emptying your rows, sow under cold cover in February in a length of PVC guttering filled with compost, one seed every three centimetres. Three weeks later, when the plants are eight to ten centimetres tall, dig a drill of the same cross-section in the bed and slide the contents of the gutter into it in one piece: the roots are not disturbed. This method gives a fortnight's head start and a perfect row. Then put the supports in immediately, before the tendrils go looking for something to hold, and firm the soil around the base to anchor the plants.

On a cool balcony, dwarf peas and mangetout grow well in a trough at least thirty centimetres deep, twenty-five to thirty litres for fifteen plants. Sow from March, one seed every four centimetres in two lines, in ordinary potting compost without fertiliser. Put in twiggy branches, a trellis or netting fixed to the railing as soon as the seedlings are up. Water regularly from flowering, as the compost dries out quickly. A trough gives two or three pickings, a pleasure rather than a store, but the green shoots can also be eaten in salads, which more than justifies the space.

Sowing in sodden ground: the seeds rot before they come up. Waiting until May to sow, and harvesting hard peas in the middle of a heatwave. Forgetting the supports, or putting them in when the plants are already collapsing, which breaks the stems. Sowing a lone row of a climbing variety with no support, or a dwarf variety with two-metre supports. Giving a nitrogen feed, pointless and harmful. Letting the pigeons help themselves without netting. Harvesting too late, when the pods are lumpy and dull. Pulling up the plants after harvest instead of cutting them at the neck and leaving the nitrogen-rich roots in place.

Until flowering, spring peas are generally satisfied with Belgian rain; a watering every ten days is enough if March and April are dry. From the appearance of the flowers, and then while the pods fill, demand soars: water generously twice a week, five to ten litres per metre of row, at the base and in the morning. A shortage of water at this point gives poorly filled pods. Do not wet the foliage, especially towards the end of the crop when powdery mildew threatens. A mulch laid before the first heat greatly reduces the need for watering.

The pea needs no fertiliser: its roots carry nodules that fix nitrogen from the air, and soil that is too rich favours leaves at the expense of pods. Excess nitrogen is in fact the leading cause of a disappointing harvest. Do mulch, on the other hand, as soon as the plants reach fifteen centimetres and the soil has warmed up, around mid-April, with five centimetres of dried grass clippings, straw or leaves: the mulch keeps the coolness the pea demands and delays the arrival of powdery mildew in June. After harvesting, cut the stems at ground level and leave the roots in place.

When the plants reach ten centimetres, earth them up lightly by drawing soil over three centimetres of stem, which anchors them against wind. Then put the supports in without delay: hazel or hornbeam branches for dwarf varieties, wide-mesh wire or netting stretched between posts for climbers, up to one metre fifty. The tendrils cling on their own, but guide the stems for the first few days by placing them against the support. A row that flops over gets damaged, goes mouldy and is awkward to harvest. A string stretched along each side of the row, at mid-height, completes the support for heavily laden rows.

Pigeons and voles are the first thieves: stretch a net or lay thorny branches over the row from sowing until the plants are fifteen centimetres tall. Powdery mildew arrives with the June heat: sow early, mulch, water at the base and spray milk diluted to 10 % at the first spots; pull up badly affected plants rather than let them spread it. Against the pea moth, the little maggot in the pods, early sowing remains the best defence, as the harvest falls before it lays its eggs in late June. Green aphids are dislodged with a jet of water or soft soap.

February: sowing in guttering under cold cover, preparing the bed. Early March: first sowing in place of a round-seeded variety, pigeon netting. Late March and mid-April: following sowings, wrinkled varieties. April: earthing up, putting in supports, guiding the stems, mulching around mid-April. May: first sowing in flower, regular watering, watching for aphids. June: harvest every two days, sustained watering, vigilance against powdery mildew. Early July: last harvests, stems cut at ground level. Mid-July: the freed bed takes turnips, beans or autumn salads, which benefit from the nitrogen left by the roots.

Harvest every two days, in the morning, starting with the lowest pods: they should be nicely plump but still smooth, glossy and light green. Hold the stem with one hand and pinch off the pod with the other. Mangetout are picked flat, as soon as the peas can barely be made out. Diligent picking extends flowering by a week or two. To stretch the season, rely above all on staggering the sowings from March to mid-May, and on a late variety for the last one. In the milder areas of Flanders or Hainaut, a sowing of round peas around the end of October, under fleece, gives a very early harvest in May.