Growing peas for salad greens

[Jenise]

I had a great salad last week at Bishop's restaurant in Vancouver that had pea greens in it. I've sauteed pea greens in chinese cookery, but never considered the salad angle before. One try convinced me it's a must-have, and I'd like to grow some myself for that purpose.

Peas are not something I've grown before, but I'm aware of the conventional stake-trellised growing system for peas when what one wants is the pods. After looking at some pea starters at the nursery on Sunday, however, and considering the desirability of the more infantile green part, made me consider the viability of growing them in a hanging pot. It looks like it'd be a natural: after all, I'm not after the peas or the flowers, I just want to pinch off the green part now and then and add them to salads.

A question to any of you master gardeners out there, then is: is there any reason I shouldn't try growing them this way?

My guiding principle in gardening (and cooking)... go ahead and try it. What can it hurt? And this is a particularly inexpensive experiment, Jenise.

Don't see why it wouldn't work. Remember that peas like it cool though. I wouldn't hang a pot in the hottest or sunniest location on your porch.

I'm not after the peas or the flowers, I just want to pinch off the green part now and then and add them to salads.

Jenise, by harvesting and using the posd while the peas have not yet formed, you might just be doing yourself a dis-service. IMO one of the delights of a garden is really really fresh green peas and really small new potatoes in a cream sauce. Yummy stuff IMO.

[Jenise]

Oh Bob, I know how great fresh peas are, but I don't have the garden space to grow regulation peas. A hanging basket of pea greens, though, that I can do--I'll just hang them on the iron spiral staircase to the roof deck.