Sugar Snap Peas – How to Harvest and How to Troubleshoot
Snap peas are a must in our garden because, toddlers. It’s how I get a guaranteed veggie in my kids no matter what. Who doesn’t love finding a pea and picking it?! Exactly.
This year the peas got away from me, so I decided to go out and prune them for a delicious side dish. The entire pea plant can be eaten! *Disclaimer: do not mistake these for the sweet pea flowers – those are poisonous. I harvested mine for some yummy wilted greens and crunchy peas, and then realized we had some powdery mildew. Bah humbug! This is very common when we have wet dewey mornings and hot dry days, so I wasn’t surprised.
How do we get rid of the mildew? There are a few approaches:
- Neem oil (only spray after the sun has gone down!)
- Spray milk on the leaves
- Harvest and then soak the leaves and peas in vinegar and hydrogen peroxide
I have tried the first two options, and opt out of eating the plant when it has mildew. However, it is not toxic for humans to eat – though could cause some allergic reactions. I am very sensitive to mold, so that’s a no-go for me.
When harvesting your sugar snap peas, you can of course just pull off the pea pods. But I like to trail back from the peas and cut down a few leaves so that I can get those leaves and some pretty spiraly tendrils. Sometimes I even cut some flowers if the plant is really huge and out of control.
Once the plant is pruned, it will put energy into growing outwards, as opposed to upwards and you will get more peas! That is the beauty of these gorgeous climbers. Cut, eat, repeat!