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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] pea tendrils

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  • From: Richard Moyer <ramoyer AT gmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] pea tendrils
  • Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 21:26:44 -0400

Hattie,
Here's a second vote for Austrian Winter peas, as a value-added cover
crop. They are available in bulk, organic, at cover crop prices. We
also sell the tips of the plants, not just the tendrils. Available
unprotected in the field in Jan if mild, moreso in Feb, March and
April. A valued addition to the salad mix coming from our hoophouse
or from under row covers. Perhaps the quickest thing to gather for our
late winter salad mix, once they start growing over the rye, due to
ease of picking and cleanliness. Blooms are gorgeous and sell well,
after the pea plants have stopped growing.

They overwinter for us better if mixed in with rye, especially during
single digits. Also don't survive as well in heavy wet, soils.

We sold quite a few biotillage (daikon) radishes from the same field
as the peas/rye. A good seller during our December markets, when
customers wanted a fresh crunch. When a customer talked about how
good the young radish greens tasted, we started eating them, too.

Cover crops doing double duty.

Richard Moyer
SW VA
Where my sugarsnap peas are oh so slow to fill out.


Message: 3
Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 18:47:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Harriet Allen <hattie_allen AT yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Pea Tendrils
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <483579.7951.qm AT web161607.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I've had very good luck with pea tendrils using the tops couple of
inches from the Austrian Winter Pea as it grows in the Spring. ?They
are amazingly tender and sweet. ?I don't cut them as baby shots, but
as tips of the maturing plants...As they flower, the flowers are also
delicious...Then they quickly go downhill, but for a few weeks, they
are fabulous.
I found Gonzo to be tough and inedible--but maybe they are designed to
cut very very young...Of the three or four kinds I tried, the Austrian
Winter Pea absolutely amazed me and it was something I was growing as
a cover crop anyway. ?As such, I usually had plenty of them and could
cut pounds and pounds of them quickly. ?I got a good price at a time
of year when not much else was ready to eat.
Mistake this year was to mix them with another cover crop...It was too
hard to cut them. ?Also, our winter was so rough that the peas I
planted in early November just didn't grow much at all until well into
the spring. ?Normally here, I could plant early-mid-November and have
a great early crop of them. ?This year I'll try to put them in at the
end of October so they can get a little more growth before the cold
weather comes. ?They seem to survive anything.

Hattie's Garden
31341 Kendale Rd.
Lewes, DE 19958 302-945-0350




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