Pea ‘Super Snappy’ Care – How To Grow Super Snappy Garden Peas

A sugar snap pea is a true delight to pick right out of the garden and eat fresh. These sweet, crunchy peas, which you eat pod and all, are best fresh but can also be cooked, canned, and frozen. If you just can’t get enough, try adding some Super Snappy pea plants to your fall garden, which produce the largest of all sugar snap pea pods.

Sugar Snappy Pea Info

Burpee Super Snappy peas are the biggest of the sugar snap peas. The pods contain between eight and ten peas. You can let the pods dry and remove just the peas to use, but like other sugar snap pea varieties, the pod is just as delicious. Enjoy the entire pod with peas fresh, in savory dishes like stir fries, or preserve them by freezing. For a pea, Super Snappy is unique among varieties in that it does not need a support on which to grow. The plant will only grow to about 2 feet tall (0.5 m.), or a little taller, and is sturdy enough to stand on its own.

How to Grow Super Snappy Garden Peas

These peas take 65 days to go from seeds to maturity, so if you live in zones 8 through 10, you can directly sow them in spring or fall and get a double harvest. In colder climates, you may need to start indoors in the spring and direct sow mid- to late-summer for a fall harvest. You may want to use an inoculate on the seeds before planting if you have not bought a product that is already inoculated. This process allows the legumes to fix nitrogen from the air, which leads to better growth. This isn’t a necessary step, especially if you have successfully grown peas in the past without inoculate. Directly sow or start seeds in cultivated soil with compost. Space the seeds about 2 inches (5 cm.) apart and to a depth of about one inch (2.5 cm.). Once you have seedlings, thin them until they stand just about 10 inches (25.5 cm.) apart. Keep your pea plant well watered but not soggy. Harvest your Super Snappy peas when the pods are fat, bright green, and crisp but before the peas inside are fully developed. If you want to use the peas only, leave them on the plant longer. They should be easy to pick off the plant by hand.