Find Luck with Legumes

All you need to know to grow delicious peas and snap beans

- NIKI JABBOUR

Shell peas.

Looking for easy, no-fail vegetables to grow? It’s hard to top peas and beans, which are reliable, productive and delicious. Plus, many varieties are quick growing and go from seed to harvest in less than two months. In this grow guide you’ll learn everything you need to know to enjoy a bounty of sweet garden peas or tender snap beans.

PEA CHEAT SHEET

Seed catalogs offer three kinds of peas: shell, snap and snow. Shell peas are grown for the tender peas tucked inside fibrous pods. Snap peas have plump edible pods with a sweet crunch. Snow peas also have edible pods, but they are picked when the pods are still flat. Pea pods can be green, purple, yellow or even blush pink.

Compact pea varieties can be grown in pots, like this fabric container.

Depending on the variety, pea plants grow bushy or they vine. Bush peas grow 18 to 36 inches tall while climbing beans reach heights of 7 feet or more.

I support all types of peas on trellises, fencing, chicken wire or pea twigs. Keeping the plants off the ground makes it easier to harvest, and it also reduces the risk of disease.

BEAN CHEAT SHEET

There are many types of beans you can plant, including snap, lima, runner, soybeans, fava and asparagus beans. Snap beans, the most widely grown, are classified according to Their growth habit: bush or pole. Their pods are green, yellow, or purple, depending on the variety.

Bush beans are compact, fast-growing plants that bear a crop of slender pods about 50 days from seeding. Pole beans mature in around 60 days and grow up to 9 feet tall. They need supports to climb, but they use less ground space, offer a longer harvest season and produce a greater yield than bush beans.