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Lotus-eater

I bought some of the giant Bijou as well I have heard they are very prolific and tasty, even the giant pods.

Yeah the 10 foot pea might be a bit of a worry, but I grow Alderman which can easily go to 6 or 7 foot anyway and they do say 8 - 10 foot, so it's not much extra

loucroft

Can I ask something, if I want to collect seed from my cuc's this year as I've been so impressed with them, is it the same as some flowers where you just leave one or two fruits near the end of the harvest to die off ?

izzwizz_2

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I bought some of the giant Bijou as well I have heard they are very prolific and tasty, even the giant pods.

Yeah the 10 foot pea might be a bit of a worry, but I grow Alderman which can easily go to 6 or 7 foot anyway and they do say 8 - 10 foot, so it's not much extra

Hi, my Nan always grew some tall peas and kept seed from year to year. Unfortunately, she's not around for me to ask, but do you think Alderman could be the variety? They tasted wonderfully sweet and seemed to crop well over a long period. (Might just have my nostalgia head on of course!)

Davesnave

loucroft wrote: »

Can I ask something, if I want to collect seed from my cuc's this year as I've been so impressed with them, is it the same as some flowers where you just leave one or two fruits near the end of the harvest to die off ?

Yes, but see the end of the cucumber section on the Real Seeds site, where they show you exactly what to do with the very ripe fruits.

Lotus-eater

izzwizz wrote: »

Hi, my Nan always grew some tall peas and kept seed from year to year. Unfortunately, she's not around for me to ask, but do you think Alderman could be the variety? They tasted wonderfully sweet and seemed to crop well over a long period. (Might just have my nostalgia head on of course!)

Well Alderman could be the variety, but there were several good tall peas around in the old days. Alderman is particularly sweet when the peas are young, let them get large and they get a bit mealy. They are a very good pea for eating fresh from the pod.
Peas never crop for that long in my experience, Alderman are not worse, nor no better, than any other. Peas need to be grown well and have a very moisture retentive soil, I suspect a compost trench is actually of more benefit to peas, rather than beans.

There aren't many tall peas left you can grow, Alderman is one, Ne Plus Ultra is another resurrected pea. This newly available Champion of England is another lost variety brought back to general release. Realseeds has also brought back another Heirloom seed, Telephone, but I've never tried that one.

There are several tall peas I should think in the Heritage seed library's, there are some purple ones as well, but none available commercially I think, apart from the wonderfully named Ezeta's Krombek Blauwschokker, which is the same as Dutch Purple podded I think. Not worth growing IMO.