When to Pick Peas: Shelling, Snap and Snow Peas

Three types, three different moments

Shelling peas, also called garden or English peas, are grown for the seed inside and the pod is discarded. Snap peas, sometimes called sugar snap, are eaten whole with a plump seed inside and a thick crisp pod. Snow peas, also called mangetout, are eaten whole while the pod is still flat and the seed is barely formed. They look similar on the plant, so if you sowed more than one type, label the rows.

The costly mistake is picking to the wrong standard. A snow pea left until the seeds swell turns stringy and tough, and it will not improve. A shelling pea picked too early gives you a handful of tiny seeds; picked too late the seeds go starchy and floury and lose their sweetness. Learn the signal for the type you are growing and check every other day once picking starts.

From open flower to a picked pod is around 7 to 10 days for a snow pea, 10 to 14 for a snap pea and 18 to 21 for a shelling pea. Note the day a flower opens on a plant and you will know when to start looking.

How to judge a shelling pea

A shelling pea is ready when the pod has gone from flat to round and you can feel the individual seeds sitting shoulder to shoulder through the wall of the pod. The pod should still be bright green with a slight gloss. Once it dulls, takes on a grayish or waxy look, or shows a white netting pattern on the surface, the sugars inside have already turned to starch.

Pods at the bottom of the plant fill first, so start there and work up. Open one pod as a test before you pick a whole row: if the seeds are pale, small and rattling loose, wait two more days. There is a window of roughly three days when a shelling pea is at its best, which is why nothing you buy compares to one picked from your own row.

1. Feel the pod, do not just look Run a pod between finger and thumb. Distinct rounded lumps along its whole length means ready. Lumps only in the middle means give it two more days.
2. Open one to check Sacrifice a pod from the lowest cluster. Full, sweet, bright green seeds mean pick. Floury texture means you have left the row a few days too long.
3. Shell them the same day Sugars convert to starch fast after picking. Keep the pods in the fridge and shell them just before cooking rather than shelling in advance.

How to judge snap peas and snow peas

A snap pea is ready when the pod has thickened into a rounded cylinder and the seeds inside are visible as clear bumps but have not yet made the pod bulge angular. The reliable test is physical: bend a pod, and a ready one snaps in half with an audible crack and no strings pulling. If it bends without breaking, it is overmature and will be tough however you cook it.

A snow pea goes the other way. Pick it while the pod is at full length, usually two to three inches (5 to 8 cm), but still flat and translucent with the seeds only faintly outlined. Once you can clearly see the seed shapes it is past its best. Snow peas come on fast in warm weather and a row can move from perfect to stringy in three days, so pick every other day and pick everything ready, even if you have plenty.

Pick with two hands and pick often

Pea stems snap easily and a one-handed tug pulls whole side shoots off the plant, which costs you every pod that shoot would have carried. Hold the stem with one hand and lift the pod off with the other, or pinch through the short stalk with a thumbnail. On a heavily loaded plant it is worth using scissors.

Frequency matters more than technique. Once a plant sets mature seed it reads that as its work being finished and slows or stops flowering. Picking every other day keeps the plant producing, and a row picked diligently will crop for two or three weeks longer than one picked when you happen to remember. Take the overgrown pods off too even if you will not eat them, for the same reason.

1. Steady the stem before you pull One hand on the stem below the pod, the other lifts the pod upward off its stalk. Never pull a pod with the plant unsupported.
2. Pick every other day In warm weather pods go from perfect to past it in 48 hours. A fixed schedule beats picking when you notice something ready.
3. Strip the overgrown ones off Pods that got away still switch off flowering. Take them off and either use them dried or compost them, but do not leave them on the plant.
4. Pick in the cool of the morning Pods picked warm in the afternoon lose sweetness quickly. Pick early and get them into the fridge within the hour.

Storage, freezing and letting some dry

All three types lose sweetness fast, because the sugar in the seed converts to starch within hours of picking. In the fridge, unwashed and in a loose bag, expect three to five days for shelling peas in the pod and about five days for snap and snow peas. Washing before storage brings on rot, so leave that until you cook them.

For freezing, blanch for 90 seconds in boiling water, plunge into iced water, drain thoroughly and freeze spread on a tray before bagging. Blanched and frozen properly they keep their color and texture for eight to twelve months, and they are far better than anything frozen raw. If you want seed for next year, leave a few of the earliest pods on the strongest plants to dry on the vine until they rattle, then shell and store them somewhere cool and dry.

Record the date of your first and last picking and roughly what weight you took from the row. Two seasons of that tells you whether your sowing date and row length are actually right for how much you eat.