How to Grow Pea Shoots
- Bev
- Aug 9
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 24
Growing salad leaves at home is easy, inexpensive, you don't need a lot of space to do it and you can grow them all year long. This is how to grow pea shoots.
Table of contents:
Why Grow Pea Shoots?
I grow pea shoots at home because they’re delicious to eat, they contain Vitamins A, B and K, and because they’re a lot cheaper to grow than they are to buy.
When I started growing them almost 10 years ago, fresh pea shoots were not as widely available in supermarkets as they are now. But obviously they’re a lot fresher picked from your windowsill than when they’ve been sitting in a bag for days. The difference in flavour is quite pronounced I think, they seem to become less sweet the more they hang around. The difference in cost between buying a bag of them (£1.50-£2.50 for about 80g as I write this) compared with growing them (pennies for masses and masses of them through the year) is clear. And some say leaves lose some of their nutritional value when they've hung around in bags for ages. I'm not a scientist so I have nothing with which to back that up, but it sounded logical to me.
So they taste better when you grow your own, they are nutritious and they cost less.
It may surprise you to learn that you can grow pea shoots from dried marrowfat peas soaked overnight. This is far cheaper than buying sprouting seeds from a garden centre and I have Mark Ridsdill Smith, the founder of Vertical Veg, to thank for this revelation. I attended a workshop with Mark about growing vegetables in small spaces years ago, and I’ve grown peas shoots ever since.
So you are looking for a box of dried marrowfat peas. When I started growing them they were about 50p a box. Now branded ones like this cost more like 75p-£1 for a 250g box, which still works out incredibly inexpensive compared with buying fresh pea shoots. And these days it’s easier to source bulk dried peas to reduce the cost still further, which is handy if you know you’ll grow them a lot.
I would never have considered buying marrowfat peas to grow into pea shoots until Mark's workshop. Actually I wouldn’t have bought them at all, marrow fat peas never having been my thing - I can’t tell you why. Something to do with the texture I think. But they are perfect for growing pea shoots.
How long do Pea Shoots take to grow?
How long your peas take to germinate will depend on the time of year. You will be soaking your peas overnight to begin with, and then planting them in a little soil.
At the height of summer I often see little shoots in less than a week. In winter it can take longer. They don’t need light to germinate, they just need water and a comfortable temperature. They only need light to turn the shoots green once they start appearing.
Because I happen to have a couple of grow lights to grow seedlings early in the year, I sometimes use one to help the pea shoots to go green in the wintertime when there isn't as much light around. It isn't essential but if you have one they do make a difference.
When are homegrown Pea Shoots ready to eat?
Within 3 weeks of planting them I usually have pea shoots to pick. The fine, curly tendrils at the top of the plants are particularly appealing and look very pretty in salads. In winter they may take longer to grow, but even then you’ll still have something to pick within a month.
Simply trim off the tops and toss them into your salad leaves. Or use them as a bit of greenery on dishes as you would parsley, they’re very pretty for that. Or mix them into a stir fry. Or you can stir them into cooked peas at the very last minute for a bit of texture and added flavour. The possibilities are endless.
Are Pea Shoots ‘Cut and Come again’?
Yes they are, to a point. You can re-cut the plants several times and they’ll keep growing back. Eventually though they'll start to get a bit tough.
In the summer I’ve had varying degrees of success planting pea shoot plants outside when I’ve finished cutting them. They have produced tiny pea pods, but those pods haven’t always had peas in them. The pods aren’t good to eat as they tend to be a bit tough and stringy but, if they do produce peas, then I leave them to dry in the pods. Then I shell the peas, replant them and start the process again. When the plants and pods become woody and inedible, the whole lot can be composted.
How to Grow Pea Shoots
You will need
A small pot for planting such as a large recycled yogurt pot, salad pot or similar
A handful of soil - it can be anything really. Even the used soil from a growbag at the end of the growing season works well as they won't be growing for long
A handful of dried marrowfat peas
Tap water
A bowl for soaking
Method
Take a handful of dried peas and put them in the bowl.
Add enough tap water to cover them plus a little extra, as they will soak up lots of water.
Leave the peas to soak overnight. The next morning they'll have swollen a lot, to almost double in size.
Put 1-2 inches of soil in the growing pot. That’s all you need, pea shoots don’t need much depth in which to grow.
Sow the peas in concentric circles if you’d like them to grow in a pattern to avoid them getting knotted together, as they sometimes do. Or you can simply throw them in randomly if you are not worried about how they grow.
Sprinkle more soil over to cover them.
Put the pot somewhere out of drafts. It doesn’t need to be in the light yet, not until the shoots start appearing.
Water them a little each day with a small watering can with a fine rose. Avoid too much water because if you drown them they may rot. Remember they were soaked originally so they started out plenty wet enough to get going.
Pop the pot on a windowsill when shoots appear.
Within 3-5 weeks they will be big enough to eat.
You can also grow fava beans using this method. They grow in exactly the same way, the leaves just look and taste a bit different and the leaves have a firmer texture.
Most of the year you can sow seeds outside too. If the temperature dips, they may take a little longer. I plant them in a guttering along the fence which is ideal, because they need so little depth.
Growing Pea Shoots - Final Thoughts
Pea shoots taste wonderful and are so easy to grow, in left-over compost if that's all you have. I find growing them in soil works best when you're using marrowfat peas, because after a couple of days of soaking they start to get a strange texture and sour smell, so they don't work well in a sprouting jar like other sprouting seeds. So if you want to just sprout them, buy pea sprouting seeds instead - I like these organic peas. When you buy pea shoots in bags not only are they expensive, but a lot of their sweetness - and, arguably, nutritional value - has gone. Picking them just before you eat them is another world altogether.
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