When I first started growing veg for proper at my present abode I had a disaster growing my peas. A mouse dug the lot up and that was that! Around that time I was replacing some roof guttering and had a five foot piece left over. This happened to be the width of my beds at home so I thought it would do fine for a long pea growing trough. After screwing some supports to the trellis in front of my potting shed I filled it with peat and sowed the seeds as I would on the ground: one pea then two then one etc. As you can see in the photo above. The ends of the trough have holes drilled in for drainage. This worked really well as it was out of the way of mice and birds. Allowing the shoots to grow as much as 6” or more will allow the roots to grow and begin to form a mat. All I needed to do was to rake a gutter shape depression in the place they are to grow, pop an end off the gutter and slide the lot out into the depression. Firm the soil slightly and water in. No root disturbance or damage. For successional crops I just repeat the process! This year I went for an early crop by suspending the trough on my tomato supports in the glass house. Unheated though the G/H is this was to give me an early crop and it is still out of the way of marauding mice.

 

Unfortunately the peas suffered from the bad weather when planted out. Time was short so I didn’t get around to sowing any more.