What it is
Austrian Winter Pea (Pisum sativum arvense) is in the Fabaceae (Legume) family. A winter legume that fixes nitrogen and gives you edible pea shoots as a bonus cool-season green.
How to grow it
It wants full sun, water it moderate, and give it average soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0–7.5. Space plants about Broadcast apart. Expect roughly Fall sow. Cool-season annual.
How it's used
Austrian Winter Pea is used: cover; shoots edible.
🔎 How to identify it
- Tendrils, paired leaflets
- Purple/white flowers
- Sprawling winter growth
Edibility
How to grow & propagate austrian winter pea
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate austrian winter pea
Legumes resent transplanting — that taproot wants to go straight down — so sow them right where they'll grow once the soil has warmed. Soak hard-coated seed overnight to speed germination. As a bonus, this whole family pulls nitrogen out of the air and banks it in the soil, so wherever you grow them you're feeding next season's crop.
Growing austrian winter pea in Texas
Give it full sun and average soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
This is a cool-season crop. On the Texas Gulf Coast that means your real windows are fall and late winter, not summer — sow as the heat breaks in September–October and again in late winter, and you'll harvest through our mild winters while the rest of the country is frozen out.
Keep moisture even, especially while it's young — deep, less-frequent soaks build better roots than a daily sprinkle.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly fall sow before you're harvesting. The part you're after: shoots and seed.
Making more for free
Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.
Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.