Over wintering peas.

[Cathy A]

Caleb Warnock, who lives in Utah, grows vegetables all year round, and also sells seeds.  I have his book Backyard Winter Gardening. 

http://calebwarnock.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-seeds-for-planting-in-janfeb-in.html

He recommends Cascadia peas for winter sowing because they are the hardiest of all the peas he's tried, and will germinate in cold soil.  He also eats the leaves.

That's interesting, Diane. Does he have any suggestions for fall-sown peas?

I find that I can plant Lincoln or Tall Telephone peas early and they will germinate. Sometimes I sprout them inside and then plant the germinated seed. They survive the cold, but it has to warm up a bit before they really start to grow.

But what I'm really looking for is a pea I can sow in late summer heat that will produce shelling peas before hard winter sets in.  Say, plant in late July and harvest around October.

[Diane Whitehead]

In the book, Caleb mentions Tom Thumb, Lincoln, and Cascadia.  He planned to test a variety of peas the next winter (probably 2014) and publish the results on his blog.

He wrote that one should plant peas in the first week of August in the ground, but that one can plant every month through the winter if you make a hotbed. That's like a coldframe but with  manure under the soil. A clear glass or plastic lid.  And sunshine!  Well, winter sunshine is rare out here on the coast, so I won't be making one.

[Adrian]

It may interested for us.
A problem is that the spring is hot too fast for us.

They can resisted at the lasts heatwaves of the summer (above 35°C 95°F) ?
In august we have had 38°C this year.
June,jully and august can have t° above 35°C 95°F and a drought.

Probably a good idea dor a seedling begining september for us.

[Steph S]

Tried an early august planting of snow peas at the farm this year to fill a gap in the trellis.  I know they were doing well at some point but whether they are actually producing now I'm not sure.  They were harder hit by Earl which flattened the corn and sunflowers and took the greenhouse plastic.  I know there was so much rain that Biskopens sprouted in the pods.  My own peas didn't last until frost really, they got funky with all the humid weather and Earl turned most of the last ones brown overnight.

The Bulroyd Bean is really hardy and produced late into the fall for me - very tough fibrous pods may be a hardiness plus, and I did shell and eat a few that I thought wouldn't have a chance to mature, and found it very nice as a big sweet shelly pea.  Those however are a really late pea, the way to plant is to stick a few among your regular season peas and let them take over when the others are gone down.  A late planting would be too late.   Midsummer maybe...