Grow the best peas for showing
Getting your timing right is the key to bringing perfect pods to the show bench
Peas have got to be one of the most satisfying vegetables to exhibit. There’s something quite pleasing about a fresh set of 12 pods of peas arranged side by side, such as you would see at the National Vegetable Society (NVS) Championships. The best pea for exhibiting, and as far as I’m concerned for eating as well, is ‘Show Perfection’.
Timing your peas to have them ready for a given show date is quite important and even though ‘Show Perfection’ has been dubbed the 100-day pea, it does seem to mature faster than that, depending on location. I intend to make a second sowing of mine today in small cells. This allows me just over 90 days of growth so that the peas should be ready for harvesting around August 26. If you know your peas will develop faster or slower than this date then you can adjust your sowing date accordingly.
As ‘Show Perfection’ is a wrinkled pea it can be prone to rotting if kept too wet prior to germination. I set mine off in 24 cells filled with Levington F2S compost and push a single pea into the compost about 1.25cm (½in) deep and cover with the same compost. Water well initially and then leave well alone until the pea has germinated, which will be within seven days or so at this time of year. After watering, you can keep them in the shade under the bench so that the compost doesn’t dry out too fast.
When seedlings are about 5cm (2in) tall you can take the tray outdoors and leave it sitting on the soil where you intend to plant out – a few days to acclimatise is all they need at this time of year. For top quality show peas, the only way to really grow them well is on the cordon system, where you train a single plant up a 2.4m (8ft) cane. As it grows, tie the plant to the cane at every leaf joint with all sideshoots and tendrils removed.