Usui Pea Shoots and Pea Tips-Delicious and Tender Pea Shoots Micro Greens

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Update 5/25/22

The only problem we’ve had with the usui peas is that they are incredibly hard to find. While they are delicious, going out of your way for these peas may be a little problematic. So this year, we have tried a few more pea types, these being Mammoth Melting Sugar Pod Snow Peas and Sugar Snap Peas. These variants are just as tender and tasty, with the added bonus of being much easier to come across in stores. While both of the pea shoots taste the same, the actual pea pods themselves are different, so it is up to you to decide whether you like snow peas or sugar snap peas more, and let that inform your decision. We have planted both in our garden, and they are both fantastic, so you cannot go wrong with picking either one.

 

In sqare foot gardening, each sqft holds 1 eggplant or 1 tomato, or 1 pepper or 2 cucumbers. Snow pea or snap pea plants will be great companion plants if you harvest pea tips so the vines won’t spread too aggressively among the main crop plants and choke them. They also fix nitrogen to the soil, which makes heavy feeders like tomatoes happy. In our 9 sqft raised bed, before 9 romano beans (against the wall) and 9 pepper plants are transplanted in mid May, we direct sowed sugar snap pea seeds on Apr 2, 2022 (seed spacing 2″, row distance, 6″).

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Pea shoots, or pea tips are the edible leaves of the pea plant. The young leaves and stems are tender, crisp, and tasty. They have a pea-like flavor, but taste fresher. Pea shoots are a very popular micro green/vegetable at Asian grocery stores.

A lot of my friends had grown their own before. I was told it was easy to grow but not as tender as the store bought pea shoots.

I wanted to try it myself. I didn’t believe that any pea shoots were tough and stringy. Well, I was wrong. Luckily, I found the reason and fixed it.

First, see my experiment for the not so tender pea shoots.

June 28, 2020 – I planted the pea seeds (green pea variety) under my newly acquired bamboo plant. After soaking the seeds for 24 hours, I placed the seeds on the dirt and covered them with some card board to keep them moist. Bamboo likes nitrogen and pea shoots make them. Why not?

July 2, I saw the tiny shoots emerge.

July 4:

July 5, lots of tendrils.

July 9, time for the first harvest!

True, it’s tough and stringy. Alright for the soup but not for stir fry. The problem is the tendrils. Having so many of them can make or break the pea shoots. So the green peas aren’t good for this use. There must be a less tendril-y pea variety. I searched the internet high and low and found out there is a special variety that is cultivated for its delicious and tender pea shoots. It’s called the Usui pea, sold by Kitazawa Seed Co. Usui pea seeds can be found on Amazon too.

Let’s grow these Usui pea shoots and see the difference.

July 18, 2020, soak the seeds in water. Look how cute they are! 🙂

July 19. I planted some seeds under a loquat tree in the container. The picture shows the seeds before they are covered by a thin layer of dirt.

July 20. I planted them in a raised bed. Just like before they were covered with dirt after the photo was taken.

July 26:

July 27:

July 29. The instructions said to harvest when the pea shoots are 10-12″ long. But I couldn’t wait. The instructions also said that “cutting regularly will promote a longer harvest of continuous side shoot growth” so I ignored the first part and harvested the first batch on day nine or ten. It was really good! One hundred percent the promised tender, crisp, and tasty!

To show the difference, I took pictures of the two varieties of pea shoots. The top one is the green pea shoot and the bottom one is the Usui pea shoot. Don’t waste your time growing tough pea shoots. Finding the right seeds is the key to the tasty micro green pea shoots.

Update on 8/11/2020–when to harvest Usui pea shoots. One of my friends waited until 10″-12″ long to harvest and found out the stems are no longer tender any more. So it’ll be better to pinch the pea tip when it’s 4″-5″ long. Alway keep at least 2 sets of the leaves so the plants can produce more energy to grow.

Update on 8/26/2020

Now that I established my Usui pea shoot/pea tip patches, I recorded the pea shoot yields. So you will have an idea on how many seeds to purchase.

Click the image to enlarge

Here are the patches I have:

5 x 18″ containers, around the fruit tree.

1 x 9″ container, around tea olive plant.

1 x 15″ container, around fruit tree.

1 x 12″ container, around fruit tree.

1 x 28″ container, around bamboo plant.

9″ x 12′ strip in a raised bed.

6″ x 30″ strip in a raised bed.

The best distance between pea plants is 2″. I used about half a pound of Usui pea seeds.

Pea shoots harvested as of Aug 26:

July 29: 1.5oz.

Aug 2: 1.7oz.

Aug 6: 2.1oz.

Aug 9: 2.2oz.

Aug 12: 2.0oz.

Aug 16: 2.4oz.

Aug 18: 2.5oz.

Aug 20: 1.5 oz.

Aug 24: 4.3oz.

Aug 26: 2.2oz.

Updated on 9/19/2020

Pea shoots/pea tips yield report continued.

Aug 29: 2.6oz.

Sep 4: 8oz.

Sep 12: 1.7oz.

Sep 17: 5.3oz.

Here are the pictures of Sep 4 harvest around a loquat tree: before and after.

 

This is the Sep 17 harvest-5.3oz

Oct 1 harvest: 6.3oz. The fruit trees were moved inside to sun room. The pea shoots indoors (low light) and outdoor (low temperature)  grow much slower.