Snap Pea Norli
A high-yielding dwarf pea that wins you over with its early harvest and the growing sweetness of its pods.
About the variety. Compact-growing variety (50–70 cm), with broad, pointed green pods; very productive and early-maturing. The pods sweeten as they ripen, but the ideal harvest window is short — pick them before they lose their tenderness.
Itinerário técnico
Um guia de cultivo passo a passo, da sementeira à colheita.
Sow direct three to five centimetres deep, in rows. Germination takes seven to fourteen days in cool soil. It is a winter and early spring crop in the south and a spring crop in northern Europe. Do not transplant. This is a dwarf variety and needs no support, which makes it practical in a small bed or a container. It concentrates its crop into a short window of two or three weeks, so successional sowings every three weeks are worth making for continuous picking.
It wants free draining, cool soil that is not acid, at a pH between 6.0 and 7.5. Waterlogged soil rots the seed. No nitrogen fertiliser. It is a good rotation opener, because it leaves nitrogen in the soil for the next crop.
It is a cool weather crop, ideal between 13 °C and 18 °C, and takes light frost. Above 25 °C the flowers drop, the plant picks up powdery mildew and the harvest ends abruptly. Sowing too late in spring is the typical mistake: the crop meets the heat exactly at flowering. On the Portuguese coast the mild winters allow sowing from autumn to late winter, and the crop finishes before the strong heat arrives. Inland in Portugal and Spain, concentrate the crop in autumn, winter and early spring, so that flowering is over before the first hot spells. In France and Germany it is a spring crop: sow from late winter to mid spring, as soon as the soil can be worked, and harvest in summer. In Italy follow the Iberian calendar in the centre and south and the French one in the north, so flowering escapes the Po valley heat.
It fixes its own nitrogen through root nodule bacteria, so it should not be given nitrogen fertiliser. Add mature compost only if the soil is poor and, if needed, a little wood ash for potassium. Feeding nitrogen is the classic mistake with this crop: it produces huge plants with few pods.
Water moderately until flowering and step it up from then on, because pod fill decides the crop. Water at the base, never over the foliage, so you do not encourage powdery mildew. A straw mulch between the rows keeps the roots cool and delays powdery mildew.
Hoe often and always shallowly, because the roots are short, near the surface and break easily. The best method is to prepare the bed two or three weeks in advance, let the first flush of weeds germinate, remove it and only then sow: that gives you a decisive head start. A thin layer of sieved compost between the rows greatly reduces later work.
Aphids gather on the soft shoots and the flowering tips and weaken the plant badly: cut off the affected tips and apply potassium soap at the end of the day. Slugs and snails devour newly emerged seedlings, which is the main cause of gaps in the row: protect with an ash barrier for the first two weeks. Birds pull up seeds and shoots and are dealt with using netting or a light fleece over the row until the plants are ten centimetres tall. Also watch for thrips and for grubs boring into the pods, and remove any damaged pods.
Powdery mildew is practically unavoidable late in the cycle as the weather warms: it covers the leaves with white bloom and dries the plant out. Sowing early is the best prevention, and potassium bicarbonate slows it down. Downy mildew and anthracnose appear in damp weather, and root rot in cold waterlogged soil. Use a four year rotation away from other legumes.
Pick every other day once the pods start to fill. Shelling peas are picked when the peas are visible but the pod is still bright green and supple; a dull wrinkled pod already holds mealy peas. Edible podded types are picked flat, before the peas swell. Frequent picking greatly extends production. Allow about 130 to 140 days from sowing to the first harvest of this variety. The reference colour is green, and that is what tells you it is ready.
