Here are some quick facts about growing pea sprouts:
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Soak the seeds first? | Yes, soak for 12-24 hours |
| Can grow without soil? | Yes, pea sprouts can be grown in plain water |
| Germination time? | 2-3 days |
| Time until harvest? | 7-14 days |
First, soak the pea seeds for at least 12 hours. If you choose to soak them for longer, make sure to change the water once or twice a day. We want to grow pea sprouts, not ferment peas, so it's important to keep them clean!
After the seeds have soaked long enough, drain the water and let them sit in a humid environment until they start germinating. Here are some pea seeds in a small, closed plastic container with a little bit of water to keep them humid but not soaked.
It will take a day or two for them to germinate after you first start soaking them. Make sure to continue rinsing them off a couple times a day to keep them clean while they're in containers like this.
You can transfer them to another container any time after they start germinating. Here are the pea seeds next to a container filled with coconut coir, which will be their new home until harvest.
And here are the germinating pea seeds on the coconut coir. Try to spread them evenly on the surface. You might be able to sow them more densely than I did here.
At this point, you can pick out any pea seeds that failed to germinate since those will start rotting and get attacked by mold.
Afterwards, cover up the container in way that blocks out light and keeps the environment humid around the seeds. I like to use alumnium foil for this. Check up on them a couple times a day to watch out for mold.
If all goes well, they should start growing and you'll notice them pushing the alunimum foil up as the seedling grow. Here's the same batch of seeds three days later:
Give them plenty of light and water them regularly and they'll eventually grow into delicious pea sprouts! Here's a batch of pea sprouts that I grew in soil instead of coconut coir:
Growing pea sprouts hydroponically
Pea sprouts can be easily grown in trays of only plain water! Since peas themselves are rather large, and not just a tiny seed, they provide nutrition for the sprouts as they grow.
The process of growing pea sprouts in water is pretty straightforward. First, soak them for 12-24 hours to start the germination process. Then after you transfer them into a tray filled with water, you can leave them to grow on their own for a few days.
I typically cover the trays while the seeds are germinating to provide a humid and dark environment. As usual, you may want to rinse the peas once in a while to prevent them from fermenting. Also make sure to remove any peas that failed to germinate.
Peas that fail to germinate will start becoming moldy, so make sure to look out for them and remove them to prevent the tray from becoming disgusting. After a week or two, you should expect them to grow into a tray of sprouts like this!
Note: Stay tuned for more pictures of the process of growing pea sprouts!