Harvest all year round without leaving your home: how to grow peas at home on a windowsill and what you need for this

In cold winter, you want to get vitamins from fresh vegetables and herbs even more than in summer. And this is possible without leaving your home.

Read the article on how to grow peas at home on a windowsill, balcony or loggia.

Growing peas at home

Growing peas at home is not much different from growing in a vegetable garden. The main thing that peas need are light and moisture. The culture does not need special care.

First, decide on a place: peas can be grown on a windowsill, balcony or loggia. The main thing is to have good lighting.

On the windowsill

Peas can be grown on the windowsill all year round. The main condition is the presence of a well-lit window, which will provide plantings with the necessary amount of sunlight. If the lighting is insufficient, it is recommended to use a fluorescent lamp.

On the balcony

You can grow peas on the open balcony before the onset of frost. Although peas are considered a cold-hardy plant, the soil must not be allowed to freeze as this will kill the peas and the plant.

In the loggia

Best of all at home, peas grow in an insulated loggia. Most often, it is she who turns out to be the most illuminated place in the apartment, while the ground in it does not freeze. Therefore, peas grow and ripen in the most comfortable conditions.

Choosing a variety of peas

Consider the most popular pea varieties for growing at home:

1. Oregon Sugar Pod - the most suitable for winter cultivation at home. Grows up to 1 meter in height.
2. Norli - early ripening and high-yielding variety with low sprouts (up to 1 meter).
3. Sugar ann - also an early ripening variety that will delight you with a harvest for a long time. The stems of this plant reach up to 1.5 meters in height.

Seeds for planting

Before planting, you must carefully select the seeds. You need to plant only whole, healthy, not old, but not ripe peas plucked.

There is an easy way to select healthy grains. It is enough to immerse them in such a solution: 1 tbsp. l. table salt in 1 liter of warm water. Healthy peas will sink to the bottom, sick ones will float. Naturally, you should plant only those seeds that have sunk to the bottom.

A step-by-step guide to growing peas at home

Let's consider in detail how to properly grow peas.

Comfortable conditions

Peas are an unpretentious culture that does not need special conditions. Prepare the seeds, provide the plant with adequate lighting, regular and abundant watering, do not forget to provide support and sometimes feed the soil.

In gratitude, you will receive fresh green peas in a cold winter blizzard.

Preparation of planting material

Once you have selected healthy seeds, prepare them for planting. To disinfect and protect peas from possible diseases and pests, it is recommended to place peas in a 2% solution of potassium permanganate for 20 minutes.

After that, you can immediately plant the seeds in the ground, or you can germinate them before planting.

Do I need to germinate seeds

Germination of pea seeds is an optional procedure.Sprouted peas will sprout faster, be more productive and nutritious, but they need regular and abundant watering.

Peas planted dry will sprout gradually, absorbing moisture from the soil. In this case, you will see the sprouts about a week later.

The most common and easiest way germination peas - on damp gauze or a cloth. First, you need to soak the peas for swelling - place them in a container and pour warm water.

The water should completely cover the peas. It is best to keep the water level about 5 mm higher than the peas, as they will absorb most of the liquid. We leave the soaked seeds for 12-15 hours.

After swelling, place the peas in a piece of damp cloth or gauze.

Important! The gauze (rag) should always be damp. If it dries up, the peas will die. You cannot fill the seeds with water at this stage. The peas will simply rot.

Next, we are waiting for the seedlings to hatch and stretch out a little. It is recommended to plant peas when the seedlings are twice the diameter of the pea. This takes approximately 3-5 days.

Landing technology

Peas are planted in rows, between which there should be 3-5 cm.The distance between the seeds of one row is 2-3 cm.The planting depth is about 4 cm.

This planting frequency is due to the small volumes of containers in which the plant can be grown at home. When the sprouts form two full-fledged leaves, they will need to be planted wider (dive).

Soil and containers

Before the dive, the peas can be grown in a common box or container, or you can prepare “envelopes” from the newspaper for the peas so that the roots of the plant are not damaged during the dive. To grow peas at home, wooden or plastic containers are used.

The soil can be used garden (but be sure to observe the crop rotation - do not take the land in which the legumes grew, the best is the soil from under the pumpkin or nightshade). Or buy a ready-made mixture in a store.

If possible, add loosening agents to the ground - sawdust, humus, straw or small stones. You can also add sand. Peas like moist, loose, alkaline soil... Before planting, it must be thoroughly spilled with warm water.

If you took garden soil for planting, then it must be treated from fungus and pests. It is also recommended to add mineral fertilizers to the soil by dissolving them in water for irrigation.

Pea care

Plant care consists in regular and abundant watering, periodic loosening and weeding of the soil, timely harvesting and construction of support for growing shoots.

It is also recommended to periodically feed the soil and process the plant in order to prevent diseases and protect against pests.

Diseases

There are many pests and diseases that affect this crop. They are mostly scary when growing peas in the open field, in the garden. At home, the risk of infection is significantly reduced.

Peas infect viral, fungal and bacterial diseases. Pests peas are aphids and larvae of some beetles and butterflies.

Prevention and treatment measures include adherence to crop rotation rules, loosening the soil and careful selection of healthy seeds for planting. Treatment of plants with fungicides and insecticides is considered to be an effective method of both prevention and treatment of peas. You can also use copper and phosphorus-potassium fertilizers.

Watering

As mentioned above, peas love moisture and need regular watering. Before flowering planting, it is enough to water 1-2 times a week, while making sure that the soil does not dry out. During flowering and fruiting, the frequency of watering should be increased up to 3-4 times a week.

Top dressing of soil

It is recommended to feed peas fertilizers containing copper and potassium-phosphorus fertilizers. The first time is when planting, and the second, third and fourth time is during flowering. These three dressings are made every two weeks.

The recipe for potassium-phosphorus fertilizer: dissolve 10-15 g of superphosphate and 10-15 g of potassium salt in 10 liters of water. It is advisable to let the solution brew for a day before watering.

Support

When the sprouts reach a height of 8-10 cm, it is necessary to build a support for them. These are wooden poles about a meter high, between which a rope or net is pulled, to which the peas will cling as they grow.

Picking

When the sprouts get stronger and form two full-fledged leaves, a pick is carried out. To do this, you can transplant the plants into separate containers (small containers with a volume of about 0.5 liters) or plant them wider in a common box.

In this case, the distance between the shoots in a row should be at least 5 cm, between rows - at least 10 cm.

When diving, use the same soil as when landing. It is better to replant plants with a lump of earth in which it grew. Plant the peas 5 cm deep, then gently sprinkle with earth.

Temperature and illumination

Peas are a cold-resistant crop, they can withstand frosts down to -5 degrees. At the same time, the ideal temperature for the growth and development of this plant is from +17 to +24. At temperatures below or above this interval, the peas do not develop at full strength.

A very important factor for the growth of peas is lighting. The plant needs sunlight for at least 10-12 hours a day.

If it is not possible to provide sufficient lighting naturally, you will have to use a fluorescent lamp. It must be placed at least 50 cm above the containers with plantings.

Harvesting

Peas bloom about a month after planting. And after a month, you can harvest the first crop.

In order not to interfere with the ripening of the pods, it is necessary to harvest every 1-2 days, preferably in the morning. If you care for the peas correctly, they will bear fruit for up to 2 months.

The volume of the crop harvested from one bush can reach 0.5 kg.

Tricks of growing peas at home

Plant peas in batches - once every two weeks or once a month. Then you will always have a fresh crop. The main thing is not to forget about the crop rotation: do not plant new seeds in the ground from the previous crop of peas.

Reviews about growing peas at home

Before planting a particular culture at home, we recommend that you read the reviews of gardeners and summer residents who have already appreciated all the charms and disadvantages of this activity. Here are some of them.

Olga: “I planted the peas purely out of curiosity, not really hoping for success, but in the end I recently gathered my first“ funny ”crop. Of course, the harvest could have been richer if some unfavorable events had not happened to my green peas, but there will still be: there is a lot of time before summer, more than one batch will have time to ripen! "

Anna: “I planted 3 peas in one pot. As I got up, I tied several thick woolen threads from the pot to the top of the window so that the peas had something to curl around. I noticed that my peas do not really like strong watering - the leaves begin to dry. "

Margarita: “Peas do not require pollination and can be safely planted at home in any quantity. On the leaves you may find black dots, these are aphids. To prevent it, wash it off with soapy water. At home for my child, I made a small bed from a 2.5 liter plastic bottle, cutting it to length. I covered it with earth and planted peas, and in the space between the seedlings I sowed arugula. It will be tasty and healthy. "

Conclusion

Many articles have been written about the benefits of fresh peas. Growing green peas at home is not such a difficult task. Of course, you should not expect the same harvest as from summer beds.

But with proper plant care, you will have green peas on your table all year round. The resulting grains can also be dried and used for further planting - both at home and in the garden.