How to Grow Snow Pea Shoots Indoors Easily

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Are you looking to grow snow pea shoots? Here’s my easy guide on how to grow snow pea shoots indoors with minimum fuss.

Snow pea shoots – the edible shoots that grow from the stalks of the pea plant when the pods are nearing completion – make for a tasty addition to salads, stir-fries and sandwiches. Both the leaves and stalks are edible, and add a fresh pea-like flavour to your favourite dishes.

Tender and crunchy, snow pea shoots are not only tasty but so good for you too. They are a nutritional powerhouse – packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Basically, all the good stuff.

The only problem is that shop-bought snow pea shoots come packaged in plastic. If you too are looking to cut your plastic waste, then the good news is you can skip the shop-bought shoots, and grow your own.

It’s super easy. You can pick up a box of dried peas from any supermarket for the princely sum of 85p and get growing. A third of a box of dried peas – so less than 29p – got me this bountiful crop within days:

tray of snow pea shoots growing indoors

Is It Actually Easy To Grow Snow Peas?

Honestly, snow pea shoots are the ultimate in container gardening. You don’t need outdoor space, and you don’t need green fingers. All you need is a tub and some cotton wool, and as long as you keep your peas watered you’ll have snow peas within days.

Over the years I’ve tried to grow a lot of different types of fruit and vegetables with varying degrees of success and failure. From experience, I would say snow pea shoots are one of the easiest and cheapest things in the world to grow. And I’ve tried to grow a lot of vegetables! I’d compare it to growing cress – if you can grow cress on your window ledge then you can definitely grow snow pea shoots.

Let me show you how to grow snow pea shoots indoors so you can see for yourself!

How to Grow Snow Pea Shoots Indoors

Here’s how to grow pea shoots so you can have a constant crop of them for not much money. It’s pretty much foolproof. Even if you’re not particularly green-fingered, you can do this (I believe in you!). If you have kids then it’s also such a fun activity as the peas shoot quite quickly, and then they can eat their bounty within just a few days.

You Will Need

  • A box of dried whole peas
  • A tub – any tub will do. Any plastic food tray such as the kind you get when you buy tomatoes or grapes will work great, or an old Tupperware tub. There’s no need to buy anything new.
  • Compost. Alternatively cotton wool will also work great if you don’t have any compost – although you will need to feed your peas.
  • Water.

Instructions

  1. To work out how many peas you need place the dried peas into the empty (soil-free) tub of your choosing – ensuring the peas are densely packed in one layer only.
  2. Empty the peas into a glass of water to soak overnight. Don’t skip this step. We did this the first time around and the peas never came to anything.
  3. The next day drain your peas and line your tub with a layer of compost or cotton wool (perhaps a centimetre thick)
  4. Add your peas.
  5. Leave the tub on a sunny window ledge, and water when the compost or cotton wool feels a bit dry. That’s all it takes to grow pea shoots – it really is as easy as that! You could cover them with a clear plastic tub (again, like a fruit tray) to trap heat. It should only take about five or six days to get to a good height, ready for eating.

This was our batch of snow pea shoots after only a day and a half:

sprouting snow pea shoots

As you can see, they shoot fast!

Top Tips

A little tip – if you use cotton wool you’ll need to feed the peas. We used cotton wool and the growth of our peas stalled at a few centimetres until we fed them with some cold black tea. After a little tea, they then they lept up in leaps and bounds.

Once your snow pea shoots are a few inches high, cut and enjoy! Don’t leave them too long before cutting. This is because once they get a bit taller and the stems thicken they start to taste quite bitter. Which is not what you want at all!

snow pea shoots growing indoors in a kitchen

As I’ve said, snow pea shoots are delicious in stir-fries and salads. However, I’ve also found they are tasty on pizzas, in pasta, and in sandwiches. They taste intensely of pea, which, as a pea lover, is no bad thing.

The good thing about snow pea shoots is as they are grown indoors you can have a constant crop all year round. After about three days into the growing cycle of the first batch simply sow another batch in another tub, so you have a good supply.

So there you go, that’s how to grow snow pea shoots indoors for under £1! Hap-pea growing! ;) And if you liked this, check out these other thrifty ideas on how to grow food from vegetable scraps!

Here’s a printer-friendly version if you need one:

How to Grow Pea Shoots

Print Recipe

Ingredients

  • A box of dried whole peas
  • A tub – any tub will do. Any plastic food tray such as the kind you get when you buy tomatoes or grapes will work great, or an old Tupperware tub.
  • Compost cotton wool will also work great if you don’t have any compost – although you will need to feed your peas
  • Water

Instructions

  • To work out how many peas you need place the dried peas into the empty (soil free) tub of your choosing – ensuring the peas are densely packed in one layer only.
  • Empty the peas into a glass of water to soak overnight. Don't skip this step. We did the first time round and the peas never came to anything.
  • The next day drain your peas and line your tub with a layer of compost or cotton wool (perhaps a centimetre thick)
  • Add your peas.
  • Leave on a sunny window ledge, and water when the compost or cotton wool feels a bit dry. That's all it takes to grow pea shoots – it really is as easy as that! You could cover them with a clear plastic tub (again, like a fruit tray) to trap heat. It should only take about five or six days to get to a good height, ready for eating.

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