Good Growing

Chris: 00:06

Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension, coming at you from

Chris: 00:13

Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. Oh, the thing that, you know, I I remember as a kid, and today, my kids seem to kind of roll these things around on the dinner plate. We're going to be talking about the garden pea. And you know I'm not doing this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator, Ken Johnson in Jacksonville.

Chris: 00:36

Hey, Ken.

Ken: 00:37

Hello, Chris. Did you have canned pea or frozen peas as a kid?

Chris: 00:42

I will say 95% of the time, they were canned. 4% of the time, they were frozen. And then 1% of the time, they came out of the garden. And the 1% of the time is, like, I think it it's more just because of the yield you get off of a pea plant is not that great. So when you're splitting that amongst five people, you're like, oh, everybody cut your pee in half and share with your sister or your who's next to you.

Chris: 01:10

So The

Ken: 01:11

the Mickey Mouse cartoon? Yes. The James and the giant beanstalk?

Chris: 01:15

Yes. Yeah. Or or Bob Cratchit did that in the, the Scrooge McDuck version of Christmas Carol. Yes.

Ken: 01:24

So we always had I was always we usually had canned peas. So I did not like peas until I discovered frozen peas. Yeah. Those are those are much better, I think.

Chris: 01:33

They they they are much better. You know, we throw frozen peas in, like, soups and stews and things like that, but you don't really cook them that long. You throw them in the last, like, five minutes just to, like, unthaw them. And, but I I do like certain canned peas. I like I like the what do they call, the very small or the petite types of canned peas.

Chris: 01:57

I think those are better than normal, sized canned peas. So those are my favorites.

Ken: 02:05

I don't think I've ever bought canned peas as an adult.

Chris: 02:08

So Come on over, Ken. We have canned peas quite a bit in my house because I like them. I I actually do like, canned peas quite a bit. But, again, I like I I will eat normal sized peas, but I prefer the petite little teeny tiny peas. I think they just taste better.

Chris: 02:27

But I put butter and salt and pepper and all that stuff on them too.

Ken: 02:30

Oh, see. I eat them plain.

Chris: 02:33

There's see, that's the difference. You gotta add the butter.

Ken: 02:36

Yeah. Doctor.

Chris: 02:37

Butter is the big thing.

Ken: 02:38

Yes. Every everything tastes good with butter.

Chris: 02:41

That's well, that's the philosophy in my house at least. Well, Ken, so why are we talking about garden peas today? You know, we've been doing these plant of the years. So who in the world has decided to name the garden pea, the humble garden pea as as the plant of the year this this year for 2025?

Ken: 03:03

This is another one of the the National Garden Bureau year of fill in the blank. So this week just happens to be we're doing peas. So I think it's, you know, not necessarily why they picked it, but, you know, encourage people to grow more peas. And and it's a relatively easy, vegetable to grow, in my opinion, anyway.

Chris: 03:23

Yeah. And timely. You know, we are breaking into March now, and garden peas are sometimes one of the the earlier things that you could plan out in the garden. I know, typically, you have to have non frozen soil to do anything, which right now, well, it was nice and thawed out last week as we had highs that were, like, not quite there, but 70 degree mark was not that far off for us. And I was just like, man, maybe I should start planting things and thought about peas, you know, and possibly getting peas out in the ground.

Chris: 03:59

But it it it got cold again, and the soil is hard again with ice on the top. So, not quite yet. But peas are a very early season, cool season crop that we would grow.

Ken: 04:12

Yeah. Typically, we're looking at soil temperatures usually like mid forties. So, again, they'll depend on the year, but a lot of times it's, you know, we get a warmer smell, maybe March, usually sometime in early April, at least in Central Illinois. And there's a lot of times, at least when we're planting bees, we're planting them in our garden.

Chris: 04:32

Yeah. And I I think that's probably a a a good guess for a lot of, yards and and homes and backyard gardens. And just because there's there's a lot of microclimates that also occur in our residential spaces. But I do have a few spots that's, like, south facing slope, and I'm so tempted to just get started. So, you know, you need to tell me right now, Kent.

Chris: 04:59

Wait. Stop it. Don't do it.

Ken: 05:02

Or if you got enough seed, put some out there. And if they don't grow, replant. Hey. We're still probably a little I haven't looked at the, the weather stations, but U of I has, set up around the state to see what the soil temperature there, but I I can't imagine it's well, maybe they could be, but I don't think it's gonna be warm enough, especially looking at the as we're recording this Tuesday, I think in Jacksonville, they're calling for potential snow tomorrow. Flurries or snow.

Chris: 05:34

Well, winter is not done with us yet even though we are in March, and I got spoiled by that warm weather last week. So yes. You know, Ken, you were supposed to say don't do it. I had this little devil on my shoulder saying plant your peas. Go get some potatoes.

Chris: 05:48

And then Ken pops up on the other shoulder like, why not?

Ken: 05:54

There's only one way to find out if you're gonna be successful.

Chris: 05:57

That's right. Hey. I love it. It's such a daring gardening move. I love it.

Chris: 06:02

Yes.

Ken: 06:03

Yes. If if you don't wanna be disappointed, you probably wanna wait a little bit.

Chris: 06:06

Okay. Well, thank you. Yes. There's there's that. That's what I needed to hear.

Chris: 06:10

So alright. Gotta avoid that disappointment. Yeah. Well, Ken, I guess some backstory of the the the humble garden pea. This particular vegetable crop has been with us pretty much since the beginning of agriculture, kind of the charred remains, kinda analyzing them chemically of, you know, ancient trash pits, things that humans would were been living at in ten thousand years ago, they found the charred remains of of the garden pea.

Chris: 06:51

And, actually, when they look at the the genetics of the peas that we grow out in our gardens today, they found not one, but two possible moments in human history when we have tried to or would try, when we did domesticate the the garden pea. And the particular, scientific name for this is pizum or pizum? Pizum? Now we did this before the show. We we figured this out.

Chris: 07:22

Pizum sativum. So, yeah, we are that's what we're talking about today, pizum sativum.

Ken: 07:33

Yes. Because there's a lot of other honestly, a lot of it. There's other plants that are called peas that are not, I guess, quote unquote true peas. So we have, like, black eyed peas, which is vigna. As you said, it's actually a type of like a bean.

Ken: 07:49

So peas and beans are related. But black eyed peas are vigna, the genus vigna, which is a bean. Mhmm. Much like sweet peas. I'm not sure what genes they are.

Ken: 08:00

But that's not what you wanna eat.

Chris: 08:02

Yeah. Yeah. Don't eat so sweet peas, that is the the ornamental flowering, type of of pea, fabaceae plant. However, the seeds of that particular sweet pea are, toxic. So I I think even if we in the the preceding the the part of the show here, if you hear us mention, like, sweet pea, I will probably be talking more about the sweeter garden pea.

Chris: 08:33

But in case I misspeak later here, yeah, but we do wanna distinguish, like, sweet pea, that is a more ornamental, you know, landscaping, type of pea that we are not wanting to eat.

Ken: 08:48

Yes. According to the Wikipedia, sweet pea is a thyrus odoratus native to Europe.

Chris: 08:55

It's a fun little cottage garden plant, flowering. It dies back to the ground every year, kinda pops up here and there. And, yeah, we we have it, here actually at our food donation garden here in Macomb. And it's here because the old house where our garden was built has sweet peas growing around it. And even with all of the demolition and and stuff that happened, the fact that we're growing on gravel, on an old gravel driveway, we still have sweet pea vines that that pop up here and there every so often.

Ken: 09:31

Cool. Yeah. But don't eat them.

Chris: 09:33

Yep.

Ken: 09:34

Sweet peas are another another, topic for another day.

Chris: 09:38

That's right. Yes. Not today. Today, we're talking about the garden pea. I guess when we kind of examine why why was this so desirable, why was this selected, one interesting little tidbit that I, as I was going through this, and I think it plays into the garden peas of today and and why we like them, is that the the seeds, which is what we typically think of when we think of seeds or or peas, the seeds within the pod, that pod is, it's non dehiscent, which means and and dehisence is the when the pod splits open to then disperse the seed.

Chris: 10:20

So if you think in your head like a milkweed pod, milkweed pods, once that seed is ripe and ready to be dispersed, that pod splits open and that seed disperses out. The pea pod is is nondehiscent, and so that means it doesn't split open. And when you have a pod like that, does doesn't split open. You know, if you're a a an ancient human looking to bring about the dawn of agriculture, you see a non dehiscent pod and you think, oh, I can store this in in the pod, and it's protected better than the other seeds or other wild plants I'm finding out there where the pods are splitting open and, you know, insects or, mice or something might be able to get to them easier. And so, they kind of credit the that ability of the pod to stay closed even when those pea seeds are ready as one of the reasons why it was probably selected as one of the first crops that we had out there.

Chris: 11:18

And, you know, peas, the garden pea being you know, one of the first things they found, right alongside was something like like wheat, or beans. You know? Some you know, those very earliest crops out there that we would have been using. And it's been with us, yeah, since the beginning when we started growing food, going from that hunter gatherer style over to our, you know, we wanted to be able to sit down, settle down, build larger communities. That requires agriculture, and here came the garden pea.

Ken: 11:47

It looks like you wanted to be domesticated.

Chris: 11:50

Exactly. Isn't that interesting? So there there this there's more to this, Ken. I don't know if you meant to prime me on that one or not, but but so, one of the interesting things is that the garden pea that we know, it's sweeter. You know?

Chris: 12:13

It has a sweeter flavor. So kind of more in the beginning, though, it was more of that rounded, more starchier pea. But it wasn't until around the sixteen hundreds that a particular genetic mutation produced a wrinkled but sweeter garden pea. And it was it that's it's one of those botany of desire things where, like, did did did we pick the plants or did the plants pick us kind of thing? But, but, essentially, this random genetic mutation in the sixteen hundreds gave rise to kind of the sweeter garden peas that we enjoy today.

Chris: 13:00

And it it is really just the the fact that this genetic mutation is a pea plant that has difficulty building branched starch molecules. It just does not have that enzyme that allows it to build starch molecules that are that are branched, that are more complex. It has you know, you can build starch just like a like a single line of text. But if you add in this branching enzyme for starch, you can now build these just just big old elaborate webs of starch. And that's what the older, kinda common that field pea had, a more starchy field pea.

Chris: 13:37

But it was this genetic mutation that where it actually lost that, which allowed instead of that sugar being converted to starch, it now just it just that sucrose

Ken: 13:48

I I

Chris: 13:49

think the the glucose and the fructose then just got converted to sucrose. And so that's that's why the the wrinkled peas, that's why they're wrinkled is because they're not starchy on the inside. Sugar is more polar, and so it draws more water into that pea seed, which stretches that seed coat. But when that water, dries out, it then that's that seed shrinks and that seed coat is wrinkled. But, again, whereas the the the field pea, is a more starchy one, there's not as much water in there, and it doesn't stretch that seed coat, so it remains rounded.

Chris: 14:26

So the the peas are so interesting. I think you can do so much neat stuff with peas. Yeah.

Ken: 14:31

And can we give people flashbacks to high school biology? Let's do it. And and Mendel.

Chris: 14:36

Let's do it. Yes.

Ken: 14:40

So, yeah, I guess I've been basically, our whole concept of genetics kinda started with with the Gregor Mendel and looking at, how, Dow genes are passed on and looking at using garden peas as an example. Was it looking at flower color? Was it the wrinkled and non wrinkled peas?

Chris: 14:57

Wrinkled, non wrinkled green peas, yellow peas. Yeah. Mhmm.

Ken: 15:03

And that kinda laid the groundwork for our our understanding of of genetics, as we know it. All our our punnett squares. Mhmm. All of that all that fun stuff.

Chris: 15:13

Taking all your alleles and things and and comparing your, in your Punnett square and and and how everything lines up. Is it dominant or is it recessive? And, what manifests itself when you get these two parents with these two traits together? Because before that, before Mendel, everyone was just like, wow. You just get two parents and you take all their genetics, which I don't even know if they knew of genetics that back then.

Chris: 15:39

You you put it all in a a jar and you shake everything up and you just throw it out and everything blends together. But then, Mendel showed that it's not really a blending. We're not really blending. That's not what's happening. It's these certain alleles and these genes that get activated, and some are dominant, some are recessive.

Chris: 15:55

And, you're not just putting stuff in a blender and mixing it up. I mean, kind of, yes, but but no. There's, like, things that are that are being activated and things that are going dormant.

Ken: 16:07

And I've it's been a while since I've read about this, but it rather, you know, it's kinda lucky they picked peas because it's relatively straightforward. Whereas a lot of other plants, that's not necessarily the case Mhmm. And stuff. So they they picked the right crop to look at.

Chris: 16:26

I think so. Yes. And and maybe it was because of the, you know, there's the peas are just easier to handle. They're a big seed. And I think it was something like he in his experiments as he's trying to figure out this this kind of dawn of genetics, he grew something like 30,000 pea plants.

Chris: 16:46

Like and I I'm I'm sure in in modern agricultural research, like, oh, that's nothing. But when you're a a Hungarian monk

Ken: 16:57

in

Chris: 16:57

in their mid eighteen hundreds, that's a lot of work for one person.

Ken: 17:04

Yes. Yeah. I can't imagine doing all that.

Chris: 17:07

Well, we covered a lot of the backstory about the garden pea, you know, where it came from, which I guess it's it's more of a it's more of a Middle Eastern, native, plant. And, again, it sits right there at the dawn of agriculture. And so but what if we wanna fast forward and and grow our own piece of history in our yard, and grow a a garden pea? There's this is some it's simple, as Ken said, but there's also some different types of peas out there that have developed over the generations that humans have been working with these. So, Ken, as as one of the sole growers of garden peas on this podcast you know, we're fifty fifty on this podcast, by the way.

Chris: 17:58

I I have not grown garden peas as an adult. Ken has. Ken, what garden peas are there are out there? What do you grow?

Ken: 18:09

Yeah. So when we're talking about peas, we're growing in our gardens, typically, we divide them into to three different groups. So we got garden or English peas. So these are like or shelling peas. So these are the ones, like, if you're buying cayenne peas or frozen peas, these are the types of peas, that are gonna be grown.

Ken: 18:23

You'll let those the seeds, fully develop. They're they're still immature typically when you're harvesting them, but they're kind of that full size. Then you're harvesting them. Usually, you wanna use those relatively quickly because those those sugars will break down kinda like sweet corn. So if you're using garden English shelling peas, you can use them, fresh.

Ken: 18:45

You'll kinda harvest that day using that the day you harvest or freeze them or or process them in some way to kinda retain that that sugar. Again, the like you mentioned, the wrinkly ones are just gonna be sweeter. They're not wrinkly. They're gonna be a little more starchy. And that may be something that you'd be using, like, in a soup, or something like that.

Ken: 19:03

There are, snow or sugar peas. And this is the ones that you would see a lot of times in, like, stir fry, the the thin potted ones. The seeds aren't really developed. They're still flat. And and you're using those, again, fresh steamed cooked.

Ken: 19:18

There are a variety of different ways you can use those. If those seeds do start getting bigger, that pod will get fibrous. You can still eat it, but, again, you're gonna be doing a lot more chewing. It gets a little stringy. So that may be when those seeds and and those snow or sugar peas get big, then you're probably using those more like a shelling pea, English pea instead, instead of eating that pot and everything.

Ken: 19:41

Now, then there are, snap peas. So these, a lot of times we're harvesting those when the seeds are about the size of a BB. So they're starting to develop, but they're not fully developed. And again, these are thicker, walled, cells or skins, whatever you want to call them. And again, you're eating these, a lot of times raw, salads.

Ken: 20:02

You can cook them like snap, or snow peas, as well, or you can shell them as well. So they're a little more, I guess, multi use. Sometimes you see them as stir fry as well, the the more, I guess, tubular, type pea pods, not the flat ones, which would be the snow peas. So they're typically the the three groups. And when it comes to what you're gonna what you wanna grow in your garden, you know, kinda think about how you're gonna use the peas.

Ken: 20:27

I would what what I grow in my garden are gonna be the the snow or the snap. I don't really have any interest in in growing peas and having to shell them. It's much easier to just buy a bag of peas or a can of peas, for that purpose. So and we're growing, you know, the the snow are snapping. And we'll get them I mean, usually when we're harvesting, the kids are helping.

Ken: 20:49

We don't really none of them really make it inside. They're being eaten as they're harvested, and stuff, which I can't really complain about because they're eating their vegetables.

Chris: 20:57

That was my childhood guardian experience with with peas, especially was, you eat them as you as you harvest them. And then we we did do some of the the shelling peas. And I would sit at the dining room table, and I would put, you know, in an old ice cream bucket. And, you know, I'd spend hours working on maybe a half a cup worth of fresh garden peas. But, yeah, you you kinda get in the you get, like, a a rhythm or you you figure out how to kinda quickly pop open that shell, zip out the the the peas inside there and, you know, toss the the the shell, the pod, and then keep going.

Chris: 21:40

So, I'd I'd still I I wish it didn't take so much to to grow your own shelled peas, like you said, Ken. It's just easier to go buy it at the store.

Ken: 21:52

Yeah. You have kids now. Put them to work.

Chris: 21:55

Well, that will last all of five minutes, but we'll see. Yeah. It's worth a try. Right?

Ken: 22:01

Yeah. So then when it comes to actually growing your peas and once you've picked, what you want, these peas are, you know, not that they're small plants, but you don't have to have very wide spacing. A lot of times it's like an inch, inch or two in between plants. So you can plant them pretty dense. Most of them are probably gonna want something to grow up.

Ken: 22:19

So I grow we have a fence around our garden. I just grow it up that fence. Some sort of trellising, that you're gonna grow up, they'll send out the tendrils and and climb. Sometimes you may need to help them find it a little bit. You can grow them up strings, however you wanna do it.

Ken: 22:31

But find some way to let them grow up. Otherwise, a lot of times they'll they'll grow together, and then it can become kind of a mess, trying to pick them with they all, you know, start growing on top of each other, and mixed. Like, you know, typical garden soil, good organic matter, they do like you do want the soil to drain, though, because you can get some, like, Fusarium, which is relatively common disease that we see in that, lower leaves will start yellowing and plants will decline. A lot of times you see that in in soil that does not drain as well. So keep keep that in mind.

Ken: 23:05

As far as, you know, when well and since, peas are legume or the bean family, they have the the, the rhizobium, the symbiotic relationship with the bacteria in the soil. So they can take atmospheric nitrogen, convert that into a plant available form. Some places that you can buy that inoculant, coat the seeds. And that typically, you'd moisten the seeds, mix that in the inoculant so you have that bacteria, present. If you've grown peas and beans in the plant, you probably already have in the past, you probably already have that in your soil.

Ken: 23:39

So I wouldn't say that's an absolute necessity, to get that. I we never get it for ours, and our peas grow, just fine. But that is an option out there, that that some places will sell, especially that you see it more on the online. I've never really seen that available in stores. But if you're buying them online, that may be something that's suggested, to grow with it.

Ken: 24:01

And then, yeah, then depending on on the cultivar you're growing, it could be thirty, forty days, seventy days. It just kinda depends on the cultivar before, we start seeing a harvest. So talk about kind of the three, pea cultivars that we grow in our garden anyway. So one that we grow is called sugar magnolia. So this is a purple potted bean inside the purple yeah.

Ken: 24:31

The pot is purple. The inside of the pod and, fruit or the the seeds itself are green. This is a seventy day. So it's and it grows maybe up to seven feet tall. So this one is is much bigger.

Ken: 24:43

I think it's got a little bit better heat tolerance, than other types of peas, which is good since it's a seventy day. It's gonna take a little bit longer. And it's gonna start warming up. And typically, when it starts getting warmer, peas will start declining because they are, cool season crops. So that's one we're growing.

Ken: 25:01

If and, you know, if we get our acts together in the fall, we can plant that in late summer and then use that as a fall harvest as well. And then we two others that we grow are little Snow Pea Purple and little Snow Pea White. So these are are smaller peas. They only get about two feet tall, for the the purple, about 40 inches tall for the white. And then it can be because they are smaller, they can be grown in pots.

Ken: 25:25

So if you don't have a place, you could put them in ground. The these these would be good options for that. The the purple, as, like, the name implies, has purple flowers on it. And then again but it's got the the green pods, and green beans. That's fifty to fifty four days.

Ken: 25:42

That's That's a little bit quicker harvest. So, again, we're planting these in the spring. We can plant them again in the fall. A little more forgiving because it doesn't have as long of a a growing season or you won't have to wait as long to harvest. And the little Snowpy white, this is thirty days.

Ken: 25:58

This is a pretty quick, turnaround, which is why we grow this one. Both of these are are the, the Snowpy, types, again, as the name implies. So we're so this one here, we get a really quick turnaround. So, basically, we've got our our snow little Snowpy white will come in. We'll get a harvest or so off of that, and the purple starts coming in, and the magnolia comes in.

Ken: 26:22

You can get multiple harvests off of these. But this way, we kinda we've got a longer harvest window, by growing these three different cultivars. And, again, they can all be planted again late summer, early fall for fall harvest.

Chris: 26:36

I I think maybe I will get started in peas this year. I'm gonna go with the shorter, maturity one. I just think that for me, that probably makes more sense, especially if you're able to rotate in anything in that spot. Do you rotate, like, warm season crops where your spring peas were? Or are they there long enough that you there's not enough time or the window isn't quite right?

Ken: 27:02

We could, but since we grow them up the fence on our ground, we're we're really not growing anything, up against that anyway. But if, you know, we could probably follow those up with, tomatoes or peppers, something like that. And since they are a little bit smaller, you know, we could probably plant, you know, intercrop that, plant those tomatoes or peppers in between those plants, while they're still while they're while they're finishing up and then let those grow up, after that.

Chris: 27:28

This reminds me, the only I have grown peas, but the only thing I used them for was a a bioassay, which is a a method to determine if you might have, like, a, like, a herbicide contaminated soil or something. You know? You you take a sample of that soil, you throw some pea seeds in there, and you take a normal potting soil, and you throw pea seeds in there. That's your control, and you just see if there's any stunting or malformation of your of your seedlings. So I I've never grown them I've never grown them out.

Chris: 28:02

But I've I've used them to do bioassays before. So yeah. No. I I I definitely wanna try this this year, Ken, so I can maybe eat some, before they get into the house because let's be clear, they probably won't make it into the house. There's a lot of eating that happens out in the garden.

Ken: 28:20

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, and and, obviously, people have eaten beef for it, so they're fairly big seeds so you can put them down. I think it was usually an inch or so deep. So this is not a a surface, so it will take a little time to I usually just, you know, dig a trench, stick them in there again, inch or so apart.

Ken: 28:40

They read the seed back, and they'll tell you what it should be of that cultivar. But you can fit quite a few plants in a small area.

Chris: 28:47

And then take advantage of that, atmospheric nitrogen that has, kind of been tied up in those root systems. And so when you chop your peas down, do you leave your roots in the ground?

Ken: 29:02

I don't even usually chop them down. They're just I I still have peas on the garden fence.

Chris: 29:07

They blow away in the wind just like that old eagle song, dust in the wind. Yeah.

Ken: 29:12

But, yeah, the the the roots, if you leave them in there, you know, as those break down as those the rhizobium bacteria dies, yeah, that'll that'll release nitrogen to subsequent crops, could potentially use. I would say for for problems, you know, verticillium wilt, is the one you see sometimes. Powdery mildew, is another one you see quite a bit, especially as it starts getting, warmer and more humid. So powdery mildew would look similar to like it would be on on cucurbits and stuff like that. It's different species, but you'd have this white powdery dots spots on leaves, which can cause them to, to start to decline.

Ken: 29:48

And I can get on the the pod sometimes and get those, kinda discolored, and stuff as well. So if you if you grow peas and you've had issues with that in the past, that's we're probably looking at trying to find some resistant, varieties or or cultivars. Good area circulation can help, so maybe space them out a little better as well so you get some airflow through there. And then, I mean, you could use fungicides. I don't know if I do that in a in a garden setting just because well, that's just me.

Ken: 30:20

We don't need enough peas to really worry about managing that. But if you really want these, the fungicides could be an option as well for for managing, pottery beetle in them.

Chris: 30:31

So, Ken, I I know we're talking legumes. We're talking peas related to beans. I was just assuming these are insect pollinated, but I let's ask let's ask Ken. Are these insect pollinated?

Ken: 30:45

See, I've never I've never seen any pollinators on them. So I don't know if they can, like, self will they self pollinate? Yeah. I don't think they do. They can they can self pollinate.

Chris: 30:56

Yeah.

Ken: 30:56

But like a lot like a lot of things, I'm I'm sure if you had pollinators in there, you may get it's not gonna hurt them. You may get a little better fruit set, if you do have.

Chris: 31:08

It it looks like that particular self pollination trait was what helped Gregor Mendel too,

Ken: 31:17

where

Chris: 31:17

he could more directly manipulate where the pollen wound up, and he would remove, the anthers because it's a perfect flower. It contains male and female parts. So he would remove all the male parts from one flower and then take from the parent flower for the the male parent. He would take the male flower parts from the other parent and, cross those. And so yes.

Chris: 31:41

Interesting. So, yeah, it can it can be enhanced by manipulation, whether that's Gregor Mendel or or an insect. But, yes, they are they are self pollinating plants.

Ken: 31:58

Yes. It's not that we would want this, but if we don't have pollinators, you at least have your pea still.

Chris: 32:04

From beginning to end, we will have our pea plants.

Ken: 32:08

Hope hopefully, we don't get to that point.

Chris: 32:10

I hope not. Well, that was a lot of great information about the garden pea, and kinda how it's has been here since the very beginning, the dawn of agriculture. And it is the National Garden Bureau's one of their handful plant of the years now for 2025. Well, the Good Growing Podcast is production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by me, Chris Enroth. A special thanks, Ken.

Chris: 32:40

Thank you so much for hanging out with me, sharing all of your, vast amounts of the garden pea knowledge that you have. So thank you so much for for being with us today.

Ken: 32:52

Not sure how vast that is, but Like an ocean. A very small one.

Chris: 32:58

A very a very shallow ocean.

Ken: 33:02

Ocean. Yes. Thank you. Go go and, get those get those bee seeds and get ready to get them started. Then let's do this again next week.

Chris: 33:11

Oh, we shall do this again next week. You know, we know you folks like native plants, and we hear you like pollinators too. But what about the benefits of our native grasses and our pollinators? Are there any? We're gonna kinda look at some of the readings out there or some of the studies out there, see what we got.

Chris: 33:27

So, well listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening. Or if you're watching us on YouTube, watching. And as always, keep on growing.

Ken: 33:46

How do you how do you say the sign of it now? Is it pissm?

Chris: 33:50

Pissm. Pissm. Pissm sativum. Sat sativum. Sat sativ Satay.

Chris: 34:12

So I feel like if it's sativum, it would have the I I. There's a little the law some there's an e, sativum sativum.

Ken: 34:22

Build a time machine and bring back a Latin speaker.

Chris: 34:25

Yes. So on Missouri Botanical Garden, they have someone record the Latin phonetics, and it is paisum sativum. Paisum sativum.

Ken: 34:42

I'll forget that, but Nice to meet you. Sativam. Hope we've got this recorded. We can dub over.

Chris: 34:50

We'll just have AI do it from here on out.