Seed Starting in January - Snow Peas

The goal: have the earliest possible snow peas.

I always get antsy in January. As I've mentioned in the past, the Winter Solstice is my New Year's eve, and winter is, for me, a season of awakening, as the days grow longer. Even if they aren't really growing warmer, in the northern Willamette valley or Oregon, winter is usually pretty mild. In fact, first pea planting is Presidents Day in mid February.

One problem with that is our cold, often waterlogged soils, which make germination of direct planted seed difficult. So, what I like to do is to start the seed indoors and transplant the little seedlings. Usually, I'd wait to do this until the first week in February, but given that we're having a pretty mild January, I've decided to start the seed now, a couple of weeks early.

I grow snow peas. They are nice to work with in the early part of the year as they germinate relatively quickly, prefer cool weather, and tolerate frost and freezing weather well. If I loose a planting, I can always reboot quickly.

3 oz. paper bathroom cup

For this project I'll be using paper cups and potting mix to start the seed. Sometimes I use nursery containers or plug trays to start seed, and sometimes I use peat or coir* pellets. But I'm going to be starting a lot of seed, and I want to avoid transplant shock as much as possible. I want to make transplanting as easy on me as possible as well. I used to start my pea seed in 2" band pots, which made transplanting easy as I would just place the little pot in contact with the ground, but it also meant that at the end of the season I had to go out and pick up all the little pots. Using paper cups makes transplanting just as easy as the band pots, but I don't have to go out and pick up containers at the end of the season. They're not reusable, but at the price, about 2¢ each they're cost effective. I buy my potting soil by the yard and pay around $50/yard for it, so I figure around 1¢ per cup for that for a total of around 3¢ in materials.

I don't use the peat or coir pellets for things that I'm growing a lot of, because, even buying in bulk, I can't get a good price break unless I buy 1,000 at a time, and, even then, they're over twice as expensive as the paper cups with a bit of potting soil. I'll be setting out the seedlings at 6" intervals, so I'll need 2 pots per row foot. I'll be planting 200 row feet per succession in 50' rows, so I'll need to start 404 pots (101 per row) per planting. I can space the little cups so far apart because I'm placing 3 seeds in each cup, if I were direct seeding I'd place 2 seeds every 4". Because I'm hydrating (soaking) my seed, I should have a very high germination rate.

I trialed this method a couple of years ago and found it works pretty well for peas, beans, cucumbers and squash, as well as all sorts of leafy greens. I use the plain, small bathroom cups, not the antibacterial ones. For plants that need more room, I'll be using paper cone cups sold for use with water coolers. Those I'll detail in another article later this year.

Pea seed, hydrated and ready to go

When I soak seed prior to planting, I count it out, weigh or measure it first, especially when I'm going to place a specific number of seed in a specific number of containers. I don't want to come up short and I don't want to throw away seed. I like to use these little plastic food storage containers for hydrating seed. They have a lid so I don't have to worry about spills, and I can stack them out of the way. They also work great for storing dry seed.

Usually I'd only soak the seed for 8 hours or so, maybe overnight. But because it's the cool part of the year and the soaking seed was stored between 55° and 60° F, I let it soak for a couple of days. This way I can be sure that not only is it fully hydrated, but I can see that it's germinated as well.

Acrospire (shoot) development in pea seed. The acrospire looks like a little tail or spine growing just under the skin or husk of the seed. 

The seeds in both of the pictures above were soaked in the same batch and were at the same level in the container. Warm water was poured over the seed and the container covered then left in a room at 55°-60° F. The seed on the left of the left hand picture shows an acrospire that is about to emerge from the seed coat (skin). The seed on the left of the right hand picture has already begun to emerge. Another hour or so and this seed would be too delicate to handle without damaging or breaking off the acrospire.

When soaking for longer than a few hours, especially when it's very warm, care should be taken to place the seed prior to emergence of the acrospires and rootlets. The acrospire is the plant shoot that emerges from the body of the seed. It goes up and the rootlets go down. If you handle seed after the acrospire has emerged from the seed coat, it's easy to damage it or break it off, rendering the seed useless.

In cool environments (50° - 60° F) you have a couple of days from wetting the dry seed to placing the seed in growth medium. As the environment gets warmer the time from wetting to germination can shorten dramatically. In the summer, when temperatures are 70° F or higher, I allow no more than 24 hours from putting the dry seed in water to planting. I only hydrate large seed such as pea, bean or corn. I don't bother hydrating small seed like radish, mustard or seed for squash and cucumbers.

While the seed is hydrating, I prep the cups by cutting a cross in the bottom and partially filling with potting soil, then tamping. Cutting the bottom of each cup is important. It allows for drainage and it also allows the roots of the plants to grow out and, eventually, into the soil of the beds they're destined for. The cups also need to be place in a container to hold them. I usually place them in plug trays with large cells or in nursery trays. But, really, any container will do as long as it will drain excess water. You don't want the cups sitting in standing water.

Filling and tamping.

You can tamp the soil with anything that will fit in the cups. On the left is a measuring cup from a liquid cold medicine. On the right is a small nursery pot.

Seeding.

When the seed is ready, it's added to the cups, which are then topped with potting soil and I tamped down with my hands. After that it's just a matter of waiting for the plants to emerge and grow big enough to plant out. If I am delayed in planting, I may let the plants grow to 3 sets of leaves and harvest some of them above the bottom set. That gives me pea threads for salad greens while still leaving enough of the plant that I can set it in beds and grow it out for the pea pods.

I'll go over the bed prep and planting for these pea plants in another article. So stay tuned....

All content, including pictures, © Joanne Rigutto unless otherwise noted.