The first crop to ripen in our balcony garden this spring were the Oregon Sugar Pod peas. They are sweet, edible-podded peas and were ready for picking about 70 days after planting.
(There is another variety called Oregon Sugar Pod 2, they are both from the same plant breeder Jim Baggett. We haven’t figured out the difference between Oregon Sugar Pod and Oregon Sugar Pod 2.)
We presprouted the pea seeds, and then planted the little seedlings into an Earthbox planter. The soil in the pot was prepared with potting mix, dolomite, and fertilizer.
You can put up to sixteen pea plants into an Earthbox. If you have a smaller pot, you’d plant fewer. For instance, a five gallon bucket can hold three pea plants, according to the Illinois Extension Service. If your pot is too small, it can become unstable once your pea vine gets too tall.
Oregon Sugar Pod peas need a sunny spot and prefer cool weather. The blossoms are a pretty white color.
The peas grow about 2 feet tall, so the vines need support. We used an Earthbox trellis, but a tomato cage, or even branches or thin sticks would also work. The peas have tendrils that clung to the trellis. This helped them stay upright, even with the windy conditions on our balcony.
The pea plants were still producing peas in late spring, when it was time to plant a tomato plant into the same pot. So, we removed 4 pea plants from the Earthbox, planted a small tomato plant in its place, and let the other pea plants keep producing. We took out the rest of the pea plants a few weeks later, right when the tomato had grown large enough to need more space.
