Apr

Growing Pea Shoots

I’ve been intrigued by recipes I’ve been seeing for pea shoots. However, pea shoots are not something I’ve ever seen in any of my local markets, so I did a quick bit of searching online. It turns out growing pea shoots is a snap! Yeah, I know that was a bad pun. This little project was satisfying on so many levels. I’ve been dying to get out and start planting my early spring garden, but the last two weeks of monsoon-like rains have prevented it.

I’ve had a couple of these wide, shallow dollar store bowls lurking in my cupboard for years, and they’ve never really gotten much use. It turns out they’re perfect for some quick indoor growing projects. When I’m done writing this blog post, I’m going to go get the other bowl and get some radishes started.

I had a big bag of sugar snap pea seed I had saved from the garden a couple of years ago. I put some of them in a glass of water and soaked them for 4 or 5 hours. Then, I filled my bowl with some growing mix I had stored in a bucket in my basement. I scattered the pea seeds across the surface, covered them with more of the soil, watered them in, and then put the bowl under my grow lights.

Talk about instant gratification… this is what I had 4 days later.

7 days later ……

… and here we are 10 days later, ready to cut the top couple of inches of growth, easy peasy! Yes, another bad pun. According to the reading I did, I should be able to cut them again in another week or so. It will be interesting to see how many times I can cut them. Now, I just have to decide which way I want to try eating them first. I’ll let you know how it goes. Now, I’m off to locate that other bowl and some radish seed I know I’ve got left over from a couple of years ago.