Sweet Little Peas: Snow Peas

Gardening got off to a late start here in Minnesota due to late frost, and for us specifically, because we restructured our vegetable garden area. Even though our corn is knee high, our tomato plants are a little more stringy than usual, and our pepper plants are waiting to put on their first surge of growth, our sweet little peas have been very fruitful for weeks.

Not Sweet Peas

Now, when I write “sweet little peas”, I’m not writing about the sweet pea plant that boasts fragrant blooms that perfume the air with a mix of jasmine flower, orange blossoms, and honey. Sweet pea plants do not have pea pods you can eat. In fact, the sweet pea pods are mildly poisonous and contain a toxin containing lathyrogens. Lathyrogens, if consumed in large quantities, can cause a disorder of the nervous system which leads to limb paralysis, and a disorder of connective tissue, causing either bone deformity and/or aortic aneurisms. I think it’s safe to assume that eating sweet pea pods isn’t a great idea. The peas I am talking about are the sweet little peas that have edible pods, and the thinnest pods of all peas – snow peas.

Snow Peas

This season we’ve been growing three types of snow peas: Carouby De Maussane, Golden Sweet, and Green Beauty. All three varieties have produced a bumper crop of peas, and have the sweetest little flowers, but the Carouby De Maussane and Green Beauty are equally tasty fresh or cooked, where as Golden Sweet is best sautéed or cooked. All three varieties have climbed our trellis just beautifully, and have created one of my favorite places to harvest vegetables.

The Trellis

In the throes of summer, when the sun has dipped below the horizon, and the cool of the evening has set in, one of my favorite places to be is harvesting fruits and vegetables in the trellis area. At this point in the growing season, pea plants surround me as I pick the sweet, snappy pods, and both of my pups wait patiently just outside the trellis while I carefully snap the peas of the vine, and string them before placing them in the bowl.

From Garden to Table

After rinsing the snow peas inside the house, I diced some onions, took half of the peas from the bowl (reserving the rest for dinner tomorrow night), and placed the onions and peas in a pan. Drizzling a little bit of olive oil over the peas and onions, and dusting them with fresh cracked pepper and sea salt is all that is required for this simple dish. Sautéing the peas over medium heat for just a few minutes is all it takes to cook the snow peas to perfection.

Tonight I sautéed all three pea varieties (Carouby De Maussane, Golden Sweet, and Green Beauty) together, and served them with jasmine rice and grilled shrimp. Everything was topped with just a little bit of Parmesan cheese. The sweet, delicate flavor of the snow peas was a delight alongside the rice and shrimp, and I am very much looking forward to eating the sweet little peas again tomorrow!

Grow Your Own Snow Peas

For those of you in the Upper Midwest, snow peas can be planted again in August, so if you’d like to try growing these easy-to-grow vegetables that are almost guaranteed to give you an abundance of sweet little peas – I ask you to give them a chance. The peas are planted 1″ deep and 2″ apart, and the vines need something to grow up on whether it’s a trellis or corn stalk. If you’re planting in rows, space rows 18-24″ apart. Snow peas can withstand light frosts, so you can harvest them late into the fall, and kids love to pick them too!

Do you have a favorite way to prepare snow peas? Maybe you like to eat them straight off the vine. Either way, I’d love to read about it in the comments below. Thanks so much for stopping by Unbound Roots today!

~Erin

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