Until the age of 14, I never knew peas plants offered flowers. I vividly remember walking into my mom’s vegetable garden and noticing the vertically growing pea plants blooming; to be honest, it shook my world.
“But mom weren’t pea plants only for peas?”, I asked my mom with a surprised look on my face. Later that night, we both stayed up late and she told me all about pea plants and their flowers.
Lately, I’ve noticed a growing number of new gardeners on the internet expressing concerns about their pea plants not blooming. I thought it would be a great opportunity to share some insights on this issue and help fellow gardeners find solutions!
Here are 4 reasons your pea plants aren’t blooming and what you can do to fix underlying issues.
4 – Excessive Nitrogen
Wait…what? Too much nitrogen? Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing? Well…no!
Excessive levels of nitrogen in the soil promote leafy growth and divert the plant’s energy and resources away from blooming. In other words, nitrogen pushes your pea plants to change priorities.
Solution: Get hold of a balanced fertilizer with moderate nitrogen content and feed it to your pea plants as directed on the label. You can also incorporate organic matter like compost or rotted manure to achieve soil balance and create more favorable conditions for blooming.
3 – Insufficient Light
If you have your pea plants in a shaded location where sunlight cannot reach them as efficiently or won’t stay for long, their inability to bloom may be due to that. Lighting plays a major role in encouraging blooms so it’s not really something negotiable.
Solution: Try relocating your peas to a different part of the garden that receives plenty of direct sunlight; a minimum of 6 hours a day would be ideal.
In case sunlight isn’t the best in your area or region, you can use grow lights to mimic natural growing conditions that would promote blooming.
2 – You’re Not Deadheading Them
If your pea plants bloomed before but aren’t blooming this time around for some reason, it might be because you’re not deadheading them.
Deadheading encourages blooming by actually directing energy into blooming mechanisms and taking it away from seed production.
Solution: The solution here is pretty simple – deadhead spent flowers as soon as they begin to wilt or appear dry and crusty. This way your pea plants can maximally direct energy towards blooming without it leaking to other unimportant areas.
1 – Temperature Stress
Although peas are known to be hardy in cooler weather, they still can’t tolerate an extended period of frost or extreme dips in temperature well. The same goes for heat and warmer weather which can stunt pea plant growth and reduce chances of flowering even further.
Solution: If you have your plants indoors, try to keep them away from ACs and heaters that can blast them with abnormal levels of hot or cold air. If they’re out in the open, you want to protect them from harsh conditions either by providing them with shade for heat or row covers for frost.
Final Words
If your pea plants aren’t blooming the graceful, vibrant flowers you were hoping they would, understanding the underlying issues is key.
By addressing different factors involved (lighting, nutrient imbalances, temperature, and soil conditions) and ruling out anything you might be doing wrong, you can better create an environment that’s favorable for blooming.
With only a little patience and the right kind of care, you’ll see your pea plants thriving and flowering like never before!