How to Grow Pea Shoot Sprouts
Many people would love to know how to grow pea shoots, those tender tasty greens that restaurants elusify into something that sells for premium prices. But is it hard to grow your own pea shoots? Nope. Not at all. Here we will show you a few methods for doing so. There are basically two different intentions one would have for pea shoots or pea sprouts. First, for the green leaves for salad. And second, the short version for just the sprouted peas that make crunchy snacks. We’ll go through both, but this post is about greens for salad.
Growing Pea Shoot Salad Greens:
This method is sourced from Shauna and her blog The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl. She writes . . .
“Pea shoots are simply the young leaves of a pea plant. Normal garden pea plants take months to grow and require more space and effort that my garden and enthusiasm currently allow. But pea shoots take just 2-4 weeks, and with minimal effort you are rewarded with delicate, juicy and tender leaves and tendrils.”
Shauna recommends heading to the supermarket and buy a regular pack of dried marrowfat peas off the shelf. Here in the USA we typically don’t have these types of peas in the store. If you can find marrowfat peas they do sprout nicely and taste great! But since you aren’t planning on making mushy peas this time, you can look for any type of pea and it will produce similar results. If your peas don’t sprout properly, try a different source of peas. Companies that sell peas for sprouting will be good sources, but are often extremely overpriced. Shauna continues here explanation on how to plant them:
“Now scatter over some dried peas, then lightly cover them with some more compost. Water them gently – don’t get too carried away like I did otherwise the peas will float to the top and you’ll be cranky.
Leave them outdoors or on a sunny window sill. Water them whenever the soil looks a bit dry.”
That’s it folks! They taste best when about 2-3 weeks old, then after that the leaves get tougher.
Thanks to Shauna – visit her blog here: http://www.dietgirl.org/2010/06/how-to-grow-pea-shoots.html
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