Plant Your Own ‘Smarties'

To fully appreciate the flavour of fresh peas at their absolute peak, there is no better way but to grow them yourself. You’ll have to wait for next winter, though, to try it.

- Johan Van Zyl

Peas (Pisum sativum) are among the oldest cultivated vegetables, having – since earliest times – been dried, soaked and used as a basic source of nourishment. They have only been enjoyed fresh since the 13th century, after achieving fashion status among Italian gourmets – who, by the way, prefer to poach them in stock.

Bursting a pod of homegrown peas and savouring them like vegetable Smarties is a joy that’s guaranteed to secure their spot every year in your winter and spring veggie garden. Their delicious, sweet flavour makes their short season in spring well worth waiting for.

Yet peas are also a “feeder crop” that provides soil with a much-needed supply of nitrogen. Once harvesting is done, dig the vines and roots back into the soil, where they will decompose and enrich the soil with nitrogen for crops that will follow.

The unfortunate fact about these green pearls being in season right now is that the timing has been overshot for planting your own this year. I personally don’t think it’s worth buying them “fresh”. At best they’ll have been picked several days earlier – whereas frozen peas, which Nigel Slater accurately describes as “a dependable delight that seldom varies in sweetness or flavour”, are delivered straight from the field to the freezer within a few hours of harvesting and consequently have a far superior flavour.

Peas belong to the legume family, of which the predominant groups are peas, beans and lentils. Aside from cereal crops, legumes are among the most widely grown and consumed foods for humans, since no other group of plants is equally rich in protein or as economically cultivated.