When to plant peas — the best time to sow this delicious crop, indoors and outdoors

Peas are one of my all-time favourite vegetables to grow in the garden. They’re fun, rewarding and taste incredible — and if you’re wondering when to plant peas, it's about time we get to work.

Whether you’re planning a small vegetable garden or looking to fill your beds and borders with one of the easiest vegetables to grow, peas are a brilliant choice. I love ‘Hurst Green Shaft’ and ‘Meteor’ peas the best — you just can’t beat the taste.

Once you know when to plant peas, it’s a relatively uphill journey to delicious harvests, straight from the pod — and you can get started as early as February. It depends on whether you’ll be sowing your peas indoors or outdoors, though.

When to plant peas indoors

If you’re keen, and you’ve got the space to start a few seeds inside, you can sow peas indoors earlier in the year for a head start on the growing season.

‘Sowing peas inside allows you to start growing earlier than directly planting outside,’ says David Glass, head gardener at Bowood House & Gardens. ‘If sowing inside, do so during February and March.’

Ideally, you’ll want to sow your peas in a greenhouse, or make use of a cold frame.

I also checked in with expert gardener and author Sarah Raven, who shared her go-to sowing trick for peas.

‘Sow peas indoors in February or March using rootrainers or the gutter method,’ she says.

What's the gutter method? 'Simply sow seeds in a length of plastic guttering filled with compost,' Sarah explains. 'It makes it so easy to slide the seedlings into their final position with minimal root disturbance.’

If you’d prefer to sow your peas straight into the soil outdoors, you’ll need to wait a longer — but there's not much in it...

Sarah Raven

Sarah’s love of gardening extends to all areas, from growing cut flowers and delicious vegetables from seed, to designing stunning gardens packed full of variety, colour, and scent. Always with a focus on helping the environment and biodiversity, Sarah’s gardens are havens for birds, bees, and other pollinators. Her popular gardening podcast ‘grow, cook, eat, arrange’ has achieved 4.3 million downloads. She’s published 14 books and runs sarahraven.com, which services over 600,000 customers.

When to plant peas outdoors

Pea seeds don't need toasty temperatures to germinate like cucumbers and other tender plants.

‘By April, the soil should be warm enough to sow directly outdoors,’ says Sarah.

Spring isn’t the only time you can sow peas, though — early varieties like pea 'Meteor' can be sown in the autumn, ready for early growth the following year.

‘For overwintering varieties, you can even sow in autumn for an early crop the following year,’ explains Jane Westoby, creative director at The Hampshire Seed Company.

To keep your pea patch producing all summer long, David says you should jump on the ‘successional sowing’ bandwagon.

'The window for planting outside opens from late March until June,' he says. 'I’d suggest planting groups of peas in succession every two weeks, so you have a regular supply ready to harvest.'

Choose a range of early, maincrop and late varieties to cover all bases.

Three pea varieties to try

FAQs

When can I transplant pea seedlings outside?

If you start your peas indoors, you'll need to think about hardening them off and moving them outside when the weather warms up.

Usually, peas can be moved outside once the last frosts are behind us — but make sure you harden them off first, just as you would when it comes to planting out sweet peas. That way, they'll dodge any unnecessary stress.

Now you know when to plant peas, you can start thinking about companion planting ideas to help your crops thrive.