Non flowering sugar and snow peas

Hey folks,

Built my first SFG in late July and planted the first week of August.  Built a 2x8 garden x 8" deep.  Created the soil just as directed, using several different types of compost from Lowes and HD, including compost manure, organic manure, and one or two others.  

I have so far planted carrots, lettuce, spinach, and sugar snap and snow peas.  Everything has taken off and I've plenty of spinach and lettuce and been very happy.  Carrots are flourishing.  My sugar snap and sow pea plants have grown like gangbusters, they are about 5' tall now.  But there's not a single flower to be found.  Not sure what's going on.  We did just have a heat wave in SE Pennsylvania where temps were touching the 90s for a few days, but some of August and early Sept was reasonable and cool.  Any way to explain lack of buds and flowers on these otherwise flourishing plants?  Never had an issue with peas before, but I've also never planted a late season crop of them.  Usually do early spring.  Thanks!

Hi Cwb, Welcome to the group! It sounds like you're having a wonderful first crop!

I'm over in central Pennsylvania and have experienced a similar cold hot/thing -- but not quite as hot.  I've grown spring peas successfully. My first attempt at fall peas last year wasn't successful.  I'm trying again this year but with a different variety - Laxton's Progress. I also started the first week of August (earlier than I did last year) and I think I just started getting flowers recently. LP is a shorty, under 2ft, because I was seeing that my spring pea varieties were yielding in order of height. I don't know if that's a 'thing', or a coincidence.

Which varieties of peas are you growing? The 5ft peas I'm glancing at online tend to list days to maturity at around 68 days, and if you got some stunting from the heat (I only got high 80s, and my peas are in the shade at the height of the heat), that could add a few more days. 70 divided by 7 days in a week is 10 weeks, and you're at most 8 weeks in now if you planted on the 1st. It takes about a week to get from a flower to an edible snow/snap pea, so 10 weeks minus 1 week gives you 9 weeks from sowing to flowering. So I think you should see flowers soon, and it's not that worrisome that you haven't seen them yet.

Do you have a favorite lettuce yet? I'm a bit off schedule and the hot weather wasn't great for my previous lettuce round. But I have a tray of lettuce transplants (I'm not very successful at direct seeding) that's probably done hardening off and ready to be transplanted. I'm probably late starting another, last set, for winter gardening, but I still plan to try. I was too chicken and too busy to try spinach with how hot it's been, thanks for letting me know it can be done!

I'm not entire sure about the specific type of peas.  It was the seed packets at Lowes that I had leftover from the spring.  Sugar snap and snow peas is all the envelopes really say.  Having not grown a lot of peas in the past, I didn't realize it went from flower to edible in about a week, so perhaps I'm ringing the alarm a little early

As for lettuce, my mother got me a gift card to baker creek seeds so I went on a little late summer shopping spree, mostly stuff for next spring but some things I could plant for this fall.  I planted some flashy butter gem lettuce.  It's like a romaine, not as crunchy but with great flavor and makes a beautiful salad due to the coloring.  Germination rate is rather low so you have to plant a bunch of seeds at once.  I can't yet post links but search the baker creek rare seeds site for flashy butter gem lettuce.  Very pretty.

I also got some Big Boston which are coming up nicely that I enjoy a lot.  Nice light lettuce with a little crunch.  Other than that I haven't done many other lettuce types but i'm looking forward to trying some others next year.  Any recommendations for me?  I'll keep you posted on my peas.  Snow peas are my absolute favorite vegetable.  Raw or in stir fries, I can't get enough!

BTW, you aren't far from my parents up near Bellefonte.  I'm going to build my mother a small square foot garden that will go on her porch.  Where is a good place in the area to get bagged compost?

I'm late welcoming you to the SFG Forum!

cwb124 wrote:As for lettuce, my mother got me a gift card to baker creek seeds so I went on a little late summer shopping spree, mostly stuff for next spring but some things I could plant for this fall.

What a wonderful gift!

I'm going to build my mother a small square foot garden that will go on her porch.

I don't know how old your mother is, but a table top garden is nice for easy gardening.  I have several, all different sizes.

My favorite lettuce is Flashy Butter Oak - one of Flashy Butter Gem's "siblings"! My second favorite is Lunix. You can see both of those on BC's site, too. The lettuces Marvel of Four Seasons and Nevada have both done well here in the summer. Not bolt-proof, but they do better than most in the heat, so they make a good choice for your mid-season lettuce plantings.

I've used a lot of the county compost: http://www.goh-inc.com/services/recycle-center-state-college/
(The price list/information is a PDF - it may download instead of auto-opening, depending on your computer settings.)
County composts carry the risk of having pesticide/herbicide residues so some advocate avoiding them, but I haven't had any issues with what I've gotten from Hawbaker.

For better or worse, I've used Lowe's and Home Depot for the rest of the compost that I've purchased rather than made.
Both sell the peat moss.
Nature's Cover often has coarse vermiculite, but it may be worth calling ahead... I think it might be a seasonal thing. In my experience, if it's not in, it's probably better to go elsewhere rather than wait.
http://www.naturescover.com/products/topsoil.php
Oh! I see they also have leaf compost and mushroom compost. I didn't know that - so I don't know if it comes bagged, or if you need to have it delivered in bulk by truck. For garden use avoid the UAJA compost.

Hey welcome, cwb!  Your timing just might be off for the flowering thing...temps have been super labile in the MW and lessening light adds to the mix.

I'm having a similar weird problem with sugar snap peas. I planted them in the fall. I must have a dozen beautiful, big green plants, but only one of them has blossoms and pods. The rest are growing happily and producing nothing. What gives?

Maybe it's just the short day light hours? If they are healthy, be patient. ??

sanderson wrote:Maybe it's just the short day light hours?  If they are healthy, be patient. ??

Another mystery solved. I took a closer look at those plants and discovered they were all missing their tops. I think those dratted grasshoppers have been at it again.