Peas in hanging baskets

Anna33

Has anyone grown peas as crops in hanging baskets? My previous attempts at peas have always been demolished by slugs & snails (argh!) so this year I'm going to try them in hanging baskets in the hope that the most voracious slugs and snails will forget to look up... I've got some fairly deep hanging baskets, but I'm now completely flummoxed by what variety will be best.

Which peas would be suitable for growing in hanging baskets? The idea is that they will trail downwards instead of growing ones that need staking, but I'm a complete novice at this. What conditions are best for growing peas like this? What peas should I go for?

Any advice and suggestions for varieties gratefully received!

pansyface

You could try Tom Thumb but all peas have long, deep roots and like deep, damp, rich, cool soil. The can’t stand being dried out.

Tom Thumb advertises itself as being a dwarf plant with full sized pods but in my experience it has teeny tiny pods with teeny tiny peas inside.

Anna33

Thank you! My hope is that as I've got deeper than normal baskets, this should allow me to grow something that might normally fail, but if peas like cool soil this might change my plan given where I was planning to put the baskets (south facing).

I'm very used to growing in and around the garden, and plenty in containers, but never hanging baskets (I've always been a bit wary of them). But I was just hoping to grow things I like out of the way of the damn slugs!

One basket is already destined for tumbling tomatoes, but maybe I'll have a rethink on peas in the other. Hmmm...


And also - your experience of Tom Thumb -that would always be my concern about some of the dwarf varieties, but maybe I'm just a bit too cynical sometimes!

Flinster

Sounds like a genius idea, although if they like deep soil... still, nothing ventured nothing gained, try both! 😃

Lizzie27

You could try growing them in a deep trough on an old table perhaps, like I'm doing for my strawberries. I also put sticky barrier traps around each table leg to stop woodlice or snails climbing up.  However, if you started the peas off in toilet roll tubes, so they are bigger and stronger when planted out and surrounded each plant with grit to deter slugs, that also helps.