Mange Tout Sugar Dwarf Sweet Green
Mange Tout peas are simple to grow and super tasty. This 'dwarf' variety is perfect for patios and roof terraces because it only grows to about 2ft tall.
Time from seed to plate: 10 weeks
Sowing Calendar
Sow
Sow peas anytime from March to June. Fill a grow bed with multipurpose compost and sow a row of peas adjacent to one side of the bed, in pairs about 5 cm apart. Push them into the compost about 2cm deep, and leave about 10cm between each pair.
Mice are notoriously good at sniffing out freshly planted peas and will steal your entire sowing if they can. Hopefully the shiny surface on your grow bed will fox them, but if you find tell tale burrowings where you sowed your peas, you should re-sow and cover the new sowings with fine chicken wire or holly.
Grow
Keep weed free and moist. Peas have very few problems with pests.
It's useful to give your peas something to climb over, although by no means essential. Left to their own devices they'll just clamber over one another. If you want to use supports - which will make the peas slightly easier to pick - push in some twiggy branches that are a couple of feet tall around your seedlings, or use some bamboo canes with linked together with string.
If the plants start interfering with whatever you're growing next to them, clip them back a bit.
Harvest
Once your plants start producing, pick twice a week if you can to encourage more pods. Always use two hands to avoid damaging the stem, and pick as close to eating as possible for best flavour.