Why have my peas stopped cropping so soon?

People expect peas to behave like beans, which crop for months, and they do not. Peas evolved for a cool, moist spring, and a British July is the wrong weather for them. Once you know the row is meant to be short, the question becomes how to stack rows rather than how to extend one.

Step by step

1. Pick every two or three days from the bottom up.Peas ripen from the base of the plant upwards. Any pod left to fill fully signals seed production and switches the plant off. Frequent picking is the strongest single influence on how long a row lasts.
2. Check the base of the plants for mildew.A white or greyish dusty coating starting on the lower leaves and moving up is powdery mildew. It is almost inevitable in a dry summer and it ends the row. Improving airflow and keeping the roots moist delays it.
3. Water the root zone, not the foliage.Dry roots make mildew worse and shorten cropping. Peas want steady moisture, particularly once flowering starts, but wet foliage encourages disease. Water at the base, in the morning.
4. Mulch the row.Peas are cool-root plants. A mulch keeps the soil cooler and damper and noticeably extends the productive period in a warm summer.
5. Sow successionally rather than trying to extend one row.A short row every three weeks from early spring through to about midsummer gives continuous peas. Each row does its three weeks and is then cleared.
6. Use the right type for the time of year.Early round-seeded varieties tolerate cold and suit the first sowings. Wrinkle-seeded maincrop types are sweeter but want warmer soil. Mangetout and sugar snap crop over a slightly longer window and are picked younger.
7. Try an autumn or late-winter sowing for an early crop.A hardy round-seeded variety sown in late autumn under cloches, or in late winter, crops several weeks before spring-sown peas and finishes before the worst heat.
8. Clear the row and cut it at ground level when it is finished.Leave the roots in the soil — the nitrogen-fixing nodules stay behind for the next crop. Follow with a leafy crop that will use it.

Tips

• Provide support from the moment the seedlings appear. Peas that flop get mildew earlier and crop less.
• Pea moth is the reason for maggots in the pods. Very early and very late sowings largely miss the flight period, which is a better answer than any spray.
• Mangetout and sugar snaps give more usable crop per square metre than shelling peas, because you eat the pod as well.
• Peas dislike acid soil and heavy nitrogen. Lime if your soil is very acid, and do not feed with a nitrogen fertiliser.

Common mistakes

• Sowing the whole packet at once — You get a fortnight of glut followed by nothing. Small repeat sowings give the same total crop spread over months.
• Leaving pods to fill for shelling later — Peas at their sweetest are picked when the pods are well filled but still bright green and smooth. Left longer they go starchy, and the plant stops producing.
• Sowing after midsummer and expecting a full crop — In most of the UK the heat and mildew of high summer beat late sowings. Sow either side of the peak rather than into it.

If it doesn't work

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