I have a bag of garden peas. They are dried and supposed to go into the crockpot for cooking. I have often wondered, can you plant dried peas in the garden? If so the cost is way less than buying seeds. So I put aside some of the dried peas for an experiment.
First, I read the back of the bag which was encouraging, at least for planting. It said the peas may have rock or dirt in them. I guess that means they haven't been cooked. 2 pounds of peas were $1.29 at the grocery store.
I am trying two ways of planting. First, I used a stick to make a hole in the dirt. This is in one of my raised beds. I put two seeds in each hole. As you can see, the seeds were very hard and very dry.
Second, (above photo) I put some of the seeds in a bowl with coffee filters as separators. I added a little water to see if the seeds would germinate. Which (see photo below) they did in about three days.
Then, I planted the germinated seeds in a second raised bed. I am hedging my bet that at least one of the two sets of store-bought seeds will grow.
And, I waited 10 days, and both raised beds have seeds coming up. I would say germination is about the same in both beds. About 60% of the seeds are sprouting at this time. See below.
The soil is pretty dry but rain is predicted for tomorrow, so I am waiting one more day to water the sprouts.
And speaking of the sprouts, as another experiment I saved a second bowl of seeds to see if they would taste good as sprouts. The first few days after germination, the seeds were starchy and a little bitter, but by the 5th day, the seeds were pretty yummy. They have a flavor similar to raw peanuts.
All photos and writing are by Growingmyownfood. I hope to have fresh sweet garden peas in 60 days.