Pea Teepee

This spring, while we were putting together our raised beds, we also decided to make something that our one year old son might enjoy during the summer: a pea teepee.  I got the idea from a farm I worked at that used to have kids make a pea teepee as part of their April Vacation Camp. It is just a nice, sheltered area that kids can crawl into and be hidden from the sun while munching on healthy snacks.

To construct it, we did a bit of frame-less lasagna gardening. We spread out some rotted horse manure, but down a weed block layer of paper products, then added a bit more manure to encourage all the worms and helpful insects to work their way to the surface. Then we added a few layers of whatever we had to spare to build a soil layer. We put down leaves, a bit of seaweed, some peat moss, and potting soil since we didn't have much to work with. Finally, we topped it off with a weed block layer of organic bark mulch.

The actual teepee was constructed using some tall (maybe 7 or 8 feet tall), straight sticks we found in our yard. We tied them together at the top with twine, and then securely buried the ends in our little circular lasagna garden. I then went around and secured the sticks together with twine, making sure to leave an entrance. I went around the teepee several times at about one foot intervals. Then, in-between the sticks, I added some twine vertically so that the pea plants would have something beside the sticks to climb up.

Since peas love cooler weather, we planted pea seeds right away. I made little pockets in the mulch with potting soil and planted them all around the teepee. After about two weeks, we started seeing our first little sprouts.

The sprouts were not coming in evenly though, so I went ahead and planted another round of seeds to fill in the gaps. Those came in much more successfully, and soon our teepee was surrounded by young plants.

Everyday, my son enjoyed running into the teepee while I watered the peas. The pea plants grew full and healthily, but they never got as tall as I had hoped they would. In the end, when they started flowering and producing pea pods, I don't even think they had climbed two feet up the teepee. I was rather disappointed because this didn't create the little hideaway I had been hoping for, but my son still enjoyed playing inside, and loved snacking on peas with me on those early summer days.

In mid July we harvested the last of the peas. Some of the plants were starting to shrivel up, and they weren't producing any new flowers. My son and I had fun picking the last of the peas, shelling them out on the grass, and munching on fresh peas. I then pulled up all the plants and laid them around the teepee to start decomposing and put nutrients back in the soil for next year.

pea plants laid around to decompose

Next year I will have to do a little more research before purchasing my pea seeds. I need to make sure I find a variety that grows tall so we can fill out the teepee a little bit better. I might even end up trying something other than peas depending on where my research leads me.