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Peas

Page history last edited by Ruth 5 years, 2 months ago

 

 

 

UVSS Pea Inventory January 2019

Garden

    Gradus - Sylvia D (2018)

    Green Arrow - Margaret (2018), Ruth (2017)

    Holgers Kæmpeært - Ruth (2018)  

    Maestro - Ruth (2018)

    Mayfair - Ruth (2017)

    Northfield - Margaret (2018)

Pod

    Blauschokkers - Margaret (2018)

    Calvert - Ruth (2018)

    Golden Sweet - Margaret (2018)

    Rae - Ruth (2018)

Soup

    Amplissimo Viktoria Ukrainskaya - Stuart (2017)

    Carlin - Ruth (2018)

    Darlaine - Ruth (2018)

    Dansk feltært - Ruth (2018)

    Gold Harvest - Ruth (2018)

    Lollandske Rosiner - Ruth (2018)

    Saint-Hubert - Ruth (2018)

 

 

Growing Peas for Seed

(to be continued...)

 


Heirloom Pea Varieties (excerpt)

Link to the entire article: https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/heirloom-pea-varieties-zewz1309zpit#Carlin_Pea

 

Mother Earth News

September 10, 2013

By William Woys Weaver

 

Heirloom Vegetable Gardening by William Woys Weaver is the culmination of some thirty years of first-hand knowledge of growing, tasting and cooking with heirloom vegetables. . . The following excerpt on heirloom pea varieties was taken from chapter 27, “Peas.”

 

A Brief History of Heirloom Pea Varieties

Peas are among the oldest of our garden vegetables. They have been under cultivation in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean since 7800 B.C. and over the centuries have evolved into many distinct varieties. In botanical terms, there are three major types: Pisum sativum var. sativum, the common garden pea; Pisum sativum var. medullare, the so-called “marrowfat” pea; and Pisum sativum var. saccharatum or axiphium, the sugar pea. There is also a subspecies called Pisum sativum var. arvense, which are smooth-seeded peas raised primarily as field crops, such as the Golderbse. All of these peas will cross with one another, so there are hundreds of varieties that fall between these larger divisions and sorting them out is no easy matter.

 

The English have raised the cultivation of the pea to an elaborate level of sophistication, and many of the old varieties found in early American kitchen gardens can be traced to English sources. The cool climate of England is conducive to pea culture, but unfortunately spring is short in most parts of the United States, so we do not have the luxury of a long, mild growing season. Many of the varieties that do well in England or on the Continent burn up at the onset of our hot summer weather, so our choices are often limited to new heat-tolerant varieties like the Italian bush pea pisello nano sole di Sicilia — a very fine pea, incidentally. On the positive side, sugar peas are also tolerant of hot weather, and we have recently discovered how well they fit into a lighter style of cooking. In fact, peas are an important source of vitamin E and therefore should not be omitted from a properly balanced diet.

 

Amelia Simmons, in her American Cookery (1796, 15), mentioned a number of peas for which there is considerable historical literature but which are seldom seen today, even among seed savers. These include the Crown Imperial, considered one of the best for our climate in the colonial period; the Crown pea; the Rouncival, also called Egg Pea or Dutch Admiral; and the Spanish Marotta. George Lindley commented in his A Guide to Orchard and Kitchen Garden (1831:567) that the Egg Pea and Spanish Marotta were considered poor man’s peas. This was a comment on his sniffish social attitudes as well as revealing volumes about Amelia Simmons’s working-class background. Most of these old varieties were known from the late 1600s or early 1700s and were grown well into the middle half of the nineteenth century. They were gradually replaced by newer varieties developed in England, Holland, and Germany, but dates of introduction are difficult to determine prior to the appearance of nineteenth-century garden publications that reported on new varieties on a yearly basis.

 

Americans also began developing their own pea varieties in the nineteenth century. David Landreth of Philadelphia introduced Landreth’s Early Bush Pea in 1823, one of the earliest datable American varieties. But there was also a marrow pea called Tall Carolina — an ancestor of Tall Telephone — and a more dwarf small-podded shelling pea called Eastern Shore. Seed savers it this country have tended to preserve the small garden varieties over the tall ones; thus there are quite a few important varieties missing from seed archives.

 

Extremely useful to the garden historian is an article in the Gardener’s Magazine for August 1836, which outlines a large field test of peas conducted by George Gordon, a gardener for the Horticultural Society of London. Gordon not only described the many varieties of peas then being grown but also provided synonyms, the various aliases by which the peas were known. In addition, he explained how seedsmen classified peas on a commercial basis by dividing them into nine groups based on the type of dry seed or vine. These were divisions based not on taxonomy but on artificial similarities. However, they provided a basis for many of the names of common heirloom peas still grown today, and therefore they are useful to keep in mind.

 

  1. Common dwarf peas. These are peas with round pods, white seeds, and vines no taller than 3 feet.

  2. Common tall peas. Same as the common dwarf, except that the vines are long and require supports.

  3. Dwarf marrow peas. These have broad pods and very sweet peas when the pods are young. The vines must not be taller than 4 feet.

  4. Tall marrow peas. These are like dwarf marrow, but with long vines requiring support. Marrow peas are only used fresh as shelling peas or as canning peas. They are not used in cookery in their dry form.

  5. Sugar peas. The pods of these peas lack the tough lining of other pea varieties and therefore can be eaten like string beans (cooked whole). The seeds are white.

  6. Imperial peas. This group is characterized by the rampant vines of the marrow peas and the small, round pods of the Prussians.

  7. Prussian peas. These have highly branched stems and small round pods, and ripen the latest of all the varieties.

  8. Gray sugar peas. The pods are like sugar peas, but with purple or deep rose flowers. The seeds are spotted or speckled and can be any color but white.

      9. Gray common peas. These plants have purple or white flowers and seeds of any color but white. Gray peas are generally used           as dry peas in cookery because when they are boiled as fresh peas they tend to be bitter.

 

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