Rumex sanguineus • Treated • Open-Pollinated

JOY MAX SCALE ✦✦✦✦✦

You are going to smile harvesting this classic English shelling pea. A super early, huge producer so sturdy it doesn’t need a trellis- it’s almost too perfect.

Joy Max Qualities

✦ This pea is more bushy and compact than other peas you’ve probably grown. It doesn’t need trellising but it will appreciate a little staking.

✦ You can plant Strike much earlier than other peas as it does well in cold, clay soil.

✦ Prolific shelling peas mature just 55 days after planting and have 6-7 plump dark green peas per pod.

✦ High resistance to Fusarium wilt race 1. These seeds have also been treated to be less susceptible to rotting in prolonged cold, wet weather.

✦ You can eat the flowers and tendrils from peas. Add the fresh young shoots to salads and stir frys.

Peas are 25% sucrose by weight and lose nearly half their sugars within 6 hours at room temperature. That’s why they taste best eaten right off the vine. Keep cool and shell as soon as possible after picking for freezing.

How to Grow Peas

Peas are a cool-weather crop. Midsummer pickings are not as prolific as earlier harvests. Plant the first sowing in early spring as soon as the soil can be worked. Minimum soil temperature for pea seed germination: 40°. Optimal range 50–75°.If seeds don’t germinate, the soil is probably too cold and wet. You can sprout them in damp paper towels and then plant them if this is a concern.

Peas are legumes with moderate fertility requirements. Avoid excess nitrogen: they can fix their own. They prefer cool, moist weather and dislike dry heat. In the spring, choose a place to plant them to get some shade in the afternoon to extend the growing season as long as possible.

Plant a new row of seeds every 10 days until it starts getting hot.

Saving Seed: Saving pea seed is easy! Leave pods of spring-planted peas on the vine to dry. Hand shell, or stomp pods on a tarp. To ensure true-to-type seed, separate pea varieties by 30 feet.

Tips for Growing Peas

• All peas produce more when staked; varieties over 2½' must be supported. Use either Trellis Netting or chicken wire. Install support at planting time to avoid disturbing seedlings. Bush varieties under 3’, like Strike, you can just make pea stakes out of branches. Find ones that have a single study limb you can stick in the ground and that fan out to grab the tendrils.

• Inoculate peas to encourage the formation of nitrogen-producing nodules on the plant roots. This enriches the soil, results in larger plants, and increases yield. Pea inoculate can be purchased at garden stores or online.

• Fusarium wilt is the most common disease of peas. Infected plants have yellow, wilting leaves, particularly the lower leaves. To keep it from happening, make sure soil drains well and keep water off the plants when watering.

• Use scissors to harvest or hold vine with one hand and pick the pods with the other; vines are fragile.

Companion Planting

Allysum, beans, carrots, lettuce, celery, corn, melons, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, radishes, spinach, and turnips. Avoid alliums: onions and garlic.