Gardening Fun: The 5 Best Vegetables to Grow with Kids
Written by Erica Strauss
Filed under: Home and Garden
Snap Peas
Bush sugar snap peas such as Cascadia are easy to grow and need only moderate support compared to their tall-growing pole pea cousin. The big seeds are easy for little fingers to handle and the peas don't need to be shelled -- eat them whole, raw, cooked, or right out of the garden.
To grow: Give the peas a little support to adhere to. A standard tomato cage pushed into a prepared garden bed works well. Plant the peas about 2 inches apart and about an inch deep in a circle around the base of the tomato cage and keep moist. Peas will germinate in about two weeks, depending on the temperature of the soil.
In two to three months, you'll be harvesting sweet sugar snap peas right off the vine. The peas have the best flavor when the pods are quite fat and the peas have fully sized up inside but have not yet turned starchy. When it's time to harvest, teach kids to use one hand to steady the pea vine and the other to gently tug the pea pod up and away from the vine. Use the Superman phrase to help them remember: "Up, up and away!" This will help to ensure that the vine isn't ripped out of the soil when the peas are harvested.
Image Credit: Grow & Resist
About Erica Strauss:
Professional chef-turned-garden writer Erica Strauss raises kids, chickens, and vegetables on one-third of an acre in suburban Seattle. She writes about edible gardening, seasonal eating, urban homesteading, and keeping a productive home at Northwest Edible Life. Join the NW Edible conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.