QUESTION: Why are my peas not germinating? Is there anything I can do? – Ken L.
ANSWER: Bear in mind that pea seeds germinate quickest in warm soil, so if it’s a cool spring, your seeds may just need a little more time to sprout. If the soil is 38 degrees Fahrenheit, expect your seeds to take 21 to 30 days to sprout, whereas in soil that is 65 to 70 degrees, they’ll sprout in 7 to 14 days. You’re likely to also see a lower germination rate in colder soil and higher germination rate when soil is warmer.
You can increase the speed and success rate of germination by soaking your pea seeds for 12 hours just before planting them. You can also set your seeds up with the conditions that make for successful germination by planting one inch deep and keeping the soil consistently moist but not oversaturated. Make sure to use viable seeds—after three or four years, seeds are expired and unlikely to germinate.
I had this problem 20-ish years ago, when I had been annually ‘enriching’ my soil with the bags of leaves raked up by the community. For several years my peas germinated really poorly– but I observed that anything which I had started in the house grew just fine on transplanting. A bit of web-search enlightened me: the decomposition process in the leaves created a germination inhibitor. I stopped adding leaves and stopped having the problem. Important because pea seed is expensiver!
Addendum–last fall, (2020) wondering whether a bag of pea seed was still viable, I did a test between damp paper towels. Great success, so germinated many more, and planted when radicle was still fairly small. Best fall (or any) pea growth I had ever seen. Flowers so abundant! But—cold came on, I had to cover bed with Reemay, and insects couldn’t get in to pollinate.
This spring (March 2021) seed set between damp towels Saturday was well sprouted in 4 days–I set into prepared soil yesterday 3-30. A speculation costing perhaps 30 seeds.
I too experienced poor germination of my peas over last couple seasons and resorted to sprouting them indoors between wet paper towels. Wow !!! ? What a huge success ! Will do that from now on. Worked for my beans this year as well.