How to grow peas

Many birds love pea seeds, so you may have to protect your crop with netting until the seeds germinate. Seeds should be planted 5” apart, 1" deep in rich, loose, moist soil. As they grow, your pea plants will use tendrils to grasp and climb, so you will want to provide netting or a trellis. Sunflowers work nicely, too. If peas are being grown in a container, a tomato cage works well. Water regularly and be sure to harvest pods as soon as they are ready to keep the plant producing. Peas left on the vine will become too tough and starchy to eat, but they can be saved for planting or stored for some easy split pea soup! Succession planting can provide many months of harvestable peas.

As members of the legume family, peas (and beans) have the ability to transform atmospheric nitrogen into a form that plants can use. Until your peas go to seed, the tiny nitrogen-converting nodules on their roots will provide neighboring plants with an extra boost of nitrogen.

Spring is the time of year when it is common to see a white powder appear on the leaves of cucumber, melon and other cucurbits. You may also see it on tomatoes, roses, snapdragons, chrysanthemums, peas, artichoke, beets, grapes and practically everything else. This bane of gardeners is called powdery mildew.

What starts as a small white spot, powdery mildew expands to engulf an entire leaf as the nutrient-sucking fungi bleed the life from your garden. It can be found on either side of a leaf and sometimes on stems.


Powdery mildew is a fungus. It is caused by different types of fungi (e.g., Erysiphe spp., Sphaerotheca spp.), depending on which plant is affected. Contrary to common belief, moisture and humidity are not needed for these fungal beasties to appear.


Powdery mildew fungi simply need living plant tissue to survive and thrive. To make matters worse, their spores are carried on the wind, so the battle never ends. The reason powdery mildew seems to disappear in the heat of summer is that these microorganisms prefer shade and temperatures between 60° to 80°F. Our California summers are simply too hot for the spores to reproduce. Instead, they remain dormant until conditions improve.


The white powder seen on leaves is actually thin layers of fungal tissue (mycelium). Other symptoms of powdery mildew include:

• yellowing leaves
• leaf die off
• distorted leaves
• yellow patches on leaves (especially on tomatoes, peppers, onions and artichoke)

Not only does powdery mildew cause leaf loss, it can also weaken a plant. This lowers production and increases susceptibility to other pests and diseases, such as Citrus Blast. Leaf drop can also lead to sunburn damage.


Prevention and vigilance are the best ways to counteract powdery mildew. These tips can help, but nothing will eliminate powdery mildew in the garden:

• Plant resistant varieties
• Change the species of annual plantings to break the fungal life cycle
• Monitor plants for new spots of white mycelium and remove infested leaves
• Plant in sunny areas
• Provide good air circulation (use spacing and pruning)
• Avoid applying excess fertilizer
• Apply horticultural oil (not within 2  weeks of applying sulfur, or your plants will BURN)
• Apply Bordeaux mixture
• Apply sulphur products before symptoms appear (only when temperatures are below 90°F)
• Apply biological fungicide (not as effective as oil or sulphur)
• Apply fungicides, as a last resort

Now, some people recommend spraying plants with a baking soda and water spray. I have had mixed results, but other people swear by it.

Have the pea plants in your garden turned white?


If you look at the photo below, you will see that new (uninfected) growth is bright green, as it should be. Everything else on the plant looks bleached. That bleaching is caused by a fungal disease known as Fusarium wilt.

Similar to Verticillium wilt, Fusarium wilt is a common vascular disease in which a fungus (Fusarium oxysporum) clogs vascular vessels. It’s pretty much the coronary artery disease of the plant world. In addition to bleaching, common symptoms of Fusarium wilt include chlorosis, stunting, damping-off, brown veins, necrosis, and premature leaf drop.


This soil pathogen is found worldwide and it is spread by water splash, tools, and infected seeds and transplants. Fusarium wilt enters a healthy plant when germinating spores (mycelia) stab at the plant’s root tips and any damaged root tissue. That’s where the really amazing stuff starts to happen!


The Fusarium oxysporum fungus has no known sexual stage. Instead, it produces three different asexual spores: microconidia, macroconidia, and chlamydospores. Basically, the germinating spores (mycelia) inject themselves into a plant’s root system. From there, the mycelia move through the cells of the root cortex and into the xylem (a plant vein). Then, it starts producing the microconidia (asexual spores). The microconidia join the sap stream for a free ride to the rest of the plant. Eventually, there are so many microconidia that a vein is blocked. That’s when they germinate.


The vein blockage stops the plant form absorbing and moving nutrients, so the stomas close, the leaves wilt, everything looks bleached and it dies. As the plant dies, the fungus spreads throughout the plant and sporulates. [Cool word, right? It means “to produce spores”]


Fusarium wilt attacks a variety of garden plants and the pathogens are specialized according to the victim. Fusarium wilt can attack peas, beans, and other legumes, tomatoes, tobacco, sweet potatoes, cucumber and other cucurbits, and even banana trees!


Once a plant is infected with Fusarium wilt, there is nothing to be done except remove the plant and toss it in the trash. Planting resistant varieties in the garden can help prevent Fusarium wilt, and crop rotation is not an effective control method. This is because the chlamydospores can hang out in the soil for a long time. Some fungicides can be marginally effective. 


Since Fusarium oxysporum prefers heavy, moist soil, aeration and adding compost to the garden can bring more oxygen into the soil. This reduces the welcome mat effect for many types of fungus. Ensuring proper drainage is the best way to avoid this garden menace.

Yesterday, I curb-scored 8 very nice tomato cages. While they come in a variety of sizes and shapes, the most common type are concentric circles held at different heights, usually with three legs.