Veggie Garden 101: Trellising Peas

Trellis installed for snow and snap peas on April 25, 2020.
Photo: Liz Bosak.

Early spring is the best time to grow snap, shell, and snow peas. Today, I installed a trellis for the snow pea and snap pea seedlings in the garden. Typically, in south central Pennsylvania, peas are sown in mid to late March. Once the peas reach about 4 inches in height, it is time to install a trellis. I have made the mistake in other years of waiting or forgetting to trellis the peas until they are 8 to 12 inches in height.
Metal fence posts installed with a fence pounder or sledge hammer are my favorite way to create trellises. They are an absolute necessity for tomatoes. For peas this year, I decided to use wooden stakes. I prefer to use sisal twine because it can be cut down and tossed in the compost bin. There are commercially available nylon or plastic trellises such as Hortnova. I have not explored using these because I have heard that they are very difficult to re-use.

Pea tendrils within reach of sisal twine trellis.  Photo: Liz Bosak.

Unlike morning glories or pole beans, peas are relatively indifferent climbers. The trellis needs to be within reach of the pea tendrils. These tendrils are used to clasp onto the twine and hold the pea plant upright. Without the trellis, the pea plants will cling to each other and eventually flop over onto the ground. This makes harvest difficult and likely reduces yield. The spacing for this trellis is to have two lines close to the seedling within about three inches and then the next two lines are about 6 inches from the bottom two.

First course of twine before returning with twine on other side
to complete a full course.  Photo: Liz Bosak.

In past years, I have painstakingly woven a trellis with six inch squares but I do not think the effort is worth the result. This year, I decided to use this trellis method based on what a local vegetable grower posted on their farm's facebook page. This took much less time and I think it will work at least as well as my previous method if not far better than before. After setting all the courses/runs/loops of trellis twine, I decided to make sure that each pea plant fell in between the first set of twine. I do not mind this extra effort because I have relatively few row feet. In a commercial setting, I would have run the first course and made sure the pea plants were contained at the same time to avoid going back a second time.

Wrapping around the final stake to return and complete the
course.  Photo: Liz Bosak.

If you are using metal fence posts, then you do not have to worry about pulling too tight. However, with wooden stakes, if you pull too hard, then the wooden stakes are forced to bend and other parts of your trellis will start to sag. I still had some sagging in the trellis but I do not think it will make a huge difference. This would not be the case for tomatoes. I use a similar system but I always use metal fence posts to hold the weight of the tomato plants and I pull the twine as tight as possible.
In thirty days, I will post some more pictures of the trellised peas.