One Vegetable, One Community is back for its fourth year in the Crookston Area. This year’s vegetable is peas.
Megan Hruby, one of the organizers, said One Vegetable, One Community not only allows people to grow and share that vegetable but hopefully encourages conversation about locally grown food and gardening. “One Vegetable, One Community is a project where the community picks a vegetable for the summer,” said Hruby. “We hand out seeds or plants. We’ve done plants in the past. And we hand those out to free to all people in the community and encourage growing and sharing that vegetable. Just kind of talking more about local foods and gardening.”
Peas were selected as the vegetable of the year through a Facebook group explains Hruby. “We actually put a poll out through a Crookston Facebook group to have the community vote on what they wanted the community vegetable to be,” said Hruby. “The community actually voted on sugar snap peas, but we just kind of had it for any pea. We had some peas donated from another community so we have shelling peas that we’re giving out which is another garden pea. And we also have the sugar snap peas which are the ones you can eat whole, while you want to shell the shelling peas.”
Hruby said the peas can be picked up in several places around town. “We have them here at the extension office out at Valley Tech Park,” said Hruby. “You can also pick them up at Wonderful Life Foods, [Polk County] Public Health and I also brought some out to Thomforde’s too. So if people are doing their shopping for plants and vegetables and flowers they have some pea seeds out there too.”
GROWING PEAS
- The season for pea growing is short wherever a cool spring gives way quickly to a hot summer, as it does in much of Minnesota. Most varieties of peas require about sixty days of growth before harvest but will stop growing and not produce flowers or pods once temperatures get about 85, as often happens in June. Peas that are produced in hot weather may also have poor quality, so it’s important to get an early start on planting.
- Direct Sow: As soon as the soil has thawed and can be worked at all, plant the seed.
- Tall vining types to be grown on a trellis should be planted at the base of the trellis in a single row.
- Evenly place the seeds (6-7 inches apart) into a furrow in the soil having a uniform depth and cover them with one inch of soil; then firm the soil over the seeds.
- A second planting may be made a week later, and another the week after that, for a longer harvest period.
HARVEST
- To harvest shelling peas, observe the plants carefully, sampling the crop each day, once the pods have begun to fill with peas. Optimum pea harvest occurs as soon as the peas have reached their full size, slightly large than the dry seed you planted. Once peas have reached maturity, they will quickly decline in quality, and will be inedible as fresh peas within one to three days.
