Peas today; courageous! I've been considering planting them (but yes, only some) - but I'm still a bit wary. You say you're zone 8 - where are you? Here in Port Alberni, zone 7 or 7b, we've had daytime rain & zero-ish nights until a couple of days ago, and the ground's still pretty wet.

What peas do you grow and do you ever manage 2 crops in a season?

I've pondered the idea of making a hilled-up row for early peas so they wouldn't be waterlogged, maybe with wooden sides and a cover on top to trap some heat. We're supposed to get sun on Sun(!)day so maybe I'll try then. I ususally pre-soak/sprout so I guess I should get started.

I also sowed the "little marvel" peas couple days ago. They're just coming up now.

I planted the "alaska" peas last September, expecting them to die in winter. They didn't. I still have them, green and flowering today -- still no pods though. It was an experiment so I'll be keeping them to see if I get any harvest out of them in upcoming spring.

As you can see, I don't need to keep them warm - they do just fine in my cool, wet climate and apparently even in my winter (they experienced the freezing temperatures, frosts and snow - though the cold temp don't last long) They're fantastic. So far in my experience, real threat is summer heat.

I don't do pre-soak the peas because they're so easy to germinate. I push them in damp soil and they pop up within two or three days.

I pre-sprout in an attempt to avoid repeating previous failures when they rotted before they could germinate, if the ground stayed cold & wet. Pre-sprouting has seemed to work but maybe they'd have survived without it, those years.

All I could think upon reading the thread title was "wow, that's brave, not many would admit it." :)

Good luck with the peas. I put up my fence today, but I expect a bit of a wait before I actually plant the peas.

Haha sunnibel, thanks.
VanIsle I'm in Metro Vancouver.

bit early since we just have fresh snow

My Peas are germinating already, and they were planted outside directly in the ground!

Nice! Mine's sprouting as well. By the way, how tall did your stupice plants grow? I have stupice seeds (WCS) and was figuring how to support it, and how tall the support should be. (Will be my first time with indeterminate tomato plant.)

At least a couple feet. Not sure how tall exactly. It branched out more than it went up. I didn't have any tomato cages at the time, and by the time I did get some, the branches were getting to wide. I would have had to break the plant in order to get the cages on. So this year I'll put the cages on right away when transplanting.

Just an update.

My Alaska and Maestro peas, planted simultaneously, both have full-length pods just starting to make peas. Maestro looks much more productive than Alaska. It's also much less tall. Besides, it makes the better-tasting "wrinkled" peas and seems to be semi indeterminate - I usually get a longer harvest from it than most other peas I've grown. Can you tell I'm a Maestro fan?

I made plantings, all pre-sprouted, from Feb 22 to Mar 25. So far as I can tell the latest planting is almost caught up to the earliest; certainly looks at most a week behind. I guess early planting is worth while, but only if harvesting a week early is important to your plans.

If I could only grow two peas they would be Maestro and the outrageous Oregon Giant snow pea. It has pods like small banana skins with sweet peas inside and also gives me a long harvest.

Sugar Snaps were way late to take off this year in SW MO, but there are now plenty of flowers and a couple of little peas. I will be feasting on right off the vine on those in another day or two.

My first few peas harvested June 7; still quite small but at their sweetest.

The picture is of peas planted together late February, pre-sprouted. The bright green ones are Alaska, approaching 5 ft tall. The lower, darker green plants are Maestro which only grow to about 2 ft and look to be much more productive.

The photo (sorry it's sideways but I don't know how to change it on the forum) is from June 6th, a full 104 days from sowing. Later plantings made around March 25 are at almost the same stage; maybe 2-3 days behind after just 73 days, so the early start was almost no advantage. My catalogs claim normally 60-62 days to maturity.

I also have some very low-growing Novella in a double row and I'm going to see how well they hold themselves up with no staking. So far it looks as if they'll be fine. They have amazing numbers of aggressive-looking tendrils for hanging on to each other.