Great British Pea Week
Try your hand at growing your own peas, or see what tasty recipes you can make with this versatile veggie, from pea soup to bacon and pea gnocchi and more.
Celebrate British pea heritage and versatility during the first week of July by driving engagement across frozen pea sales, seed/gardening supplies, and recipe content.
- Grow-your-own pea guides and seed kit promotions for home gardeners
- Frozen pea recipe collections featuring chef-backed dishes like pea soup and bacon gnocchi
- Heritage and nutrition storytelling around British-grown peas and their provenance
- DIY gardening tips and seasonal planting calendars tied to pea cultivation
Great British Pea Week aims to enhance understanding and awareness of the heritage and provenance of peas, giving us all a reason to celebrate the little green nutritional wonders. The celebration was launched by the pea-vining industry and the Yes Peas! Campaign, which took place in 2015.
The British Growers Association runs the Yes Peas! Campaign, which is funded by machinery companies, freezers, and growers in the vining pea sector. The campaign seeks to promote the nutritional benefits, provenance, and versatility of frozen peas, engaging with consumers and inspiring them to use peas in their meals. TV chef, Rachel Green, has supported the campaign, with hundreds of her recipes being used as part of it.
But, of course, the history of peas themselves go back much further! In the early times, peas were mainly grown for their dry seeds. In the early third century, BC, Theophrastus discusses this vegetable as being one of the legumes that are sown later in the winter because of their tenderness.
Peas are also mentioned in De re Rustica by Columella in the first century AD. This is when wild peas were gathered by Roman legionaries from the sandy soils of Judea and Numidia to supplement their rations.
Field peas were also constantly mentioned throughout the Middle Ages, when they were an important staple that kept famine at bay. This little ingredient has had a key role to play throughout many different eras in history. In fact, in Early Modern Europe, it was deemed an innovative luxury to eat green peas fresh and immature.
Grow Your Own Peas
One of the best ways to celebrate Great British Pea Week is to try growing your own peas! After all, nothing compares with the super-sweet flavor and tender texture of homegrown peas that have been freshly harvested. So, how can you grow your own peas at home? To do this, you will need to plant peas 3 cm deep into fertile ground. Do this from spring to mid-summer. Use pea sticks to stake your young plants, as this is going to support their growth. Once the flowers appear, make sure they are fed weekly using a high-potash fertilizer. You will need to harvest peas for around three months. Of course, another option is to sow peas from seeds. This is something you will be able to do between March and early July. Choose a spot that is well-drained and sunny. Make sure that you dig in a lot of garden compost, mushroom compost, or well-rotted manure to improve the soil before you sow. You should then use a spade or how to create a shallow trench – approximately 3 cm deep and 22 cm wide. Sow the peas in two parallel lines, with the seeds being spaced around 10 cm apart. Us soil to cover the seeds, label the row, and water them well. You should notice that seedlings start to appear within a week or two!
Experiment with Delicious Pea Recipes
There is only one thing better than growing your own peas, and this is eating them! There are lots of delicious recipes online, so you’re bound to find something that appeals to your taste buds. If you want to create something that can impress your friends and family, we would suggest bacon and pea gnocchi. You can give the classic British combination some Italian flair with this dish (see recipe below).
Learn Fun Facts about Peas
Did you know that the first-ever television commercial in the United Kingdom was for BirdsEye Frozen Peas in 1969?In 1984, Janet Harris of Sussex, set the record for the highest number of peas eaten one at a time with chopsticks in one hour. She managed 7,175! Maybe you could try and beat this to celebrate? Eric ‘Badlands’ Booker holds the record for pea-eating, consuming 9.5 one-pound bowls of peas within 12 minutes.The average person consumes almost 9,000 peas per year in Britain. At least 37 types of peas were grown by ancient Romans. The first known reference to mushy peas was in 1968, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.The word pea came about in the 1660s. They were originally called ‘pease’ in English.