Yakumo is a large crispy flavoursome purple flowered Snow Pea – (often referred to as ‘mange tout‘). It is probably the most reliable and best flavoured Snow Pea I have grown. The flavor is very ‘green’ and crisp and fresh and the flowers are very attractive on mass against the vivid green leafy vines.
These Snow Pea plants can grow very large – often over 3 metres in height and need a strong trellis system or something fairly sturdy to grow up. They can snap fairly easily in high wind so it’s good to have them fairly well anchored against a growing mesh. They take about 6+ weeks to get to full flowering size but are very productive once they get going.
They like a shaded soil but having the main plant stem in full sun and with not too much deep mulch around the base. I get this by using a fast breaking down mulch like lucerne mounded up around the base of the trellis system when the seeds go in and then just let the plants shade the base as they grow and then mulch breaks down and flattens out.
This means they also suit places in tight corners near walls etc as long as the top growth gets lots of sun. And you can place the trellis fairly close to each other as the peas tend to all form near the tops of the plants.
I have a watering system wired to the trellis half way up so the water sprays and dribbles down underneath the plants to the ground level.
They prefer cool weather and can be the winter alternative crop on a trellis system with growing climbing beans or cucumbers during the warmer months.
The plants in these photos are growing on a 1.5m high trellis so the plants are bent over in half and then growing up again to flower.
Snow peas are on the right hand side…
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