How to Use the Entire Pea Plant

We had just added rabbits to our homestead inventory of
livestock, so we started our experiments with them.
Surprise! Not only did the animals relish our “useless” pea
pods (and other vegetable “wastes”), but the culls from the
garden also added variety to the bunnies’ diet,
substantially cut our bills for rabbit feed, and became a
far more desirable addition to the compost pile once they’d
been transformed into rabbit manure than they’d ever been
as garden scraps.

We’ve since learned that we can work the same kind of
mutually profitable exchange with our ducks, chickens,
calves, sheep . . . in fact, all the animals in
our menagerie. Old-time farmers, I’m sure, have known this
obvious truth all along . . . but that still doesn’t keep
the idea from being a worthwhile revelation to beginning
back-to-the-landers.

Once we’d had our eyes opened to the possibilities, we
began looking for even more ways to make our hulled-out pea
pods pay their way on our little farm. And, as luck would
have it, we immediately turned up a novel use for the
shells that had probably been right under our noses all
along: Pea Pod Wine.

We’ve now collected a number of recipes for this treat, but
we think that the one which follows is the best of all . .
. it produces a fine flavored drink that should please the
palate of almost any connoisseur of homemade wine:

Wash two and a half pounds of empty pea pods and place them
in a large cooking pot. Then cut up one grapefruit and two
oranges-rinds and all-and add them to the container. At the
same time, boil five quarts of water in a separate vessel .
. . and then immediately pour it over the pods and chunks
of citrus fruit. Allow the mixture to stand overnight.

Bring the contents of your cooking pot to a boil the next
day and strain the solution through a piece of cheesecloth,
muslin, or an old kitchen towel into a fermentation vessel.
(Our local bakery purchases its pastry filling in
five-gallon plastic containers and-once they’re emptied-is
happy to sell the pails to us for 75¢ each. A clean,
new plastic garbage can or one of those wonderful old
glazed-on-the-inside ceramic crocks that every farmhouse
used to have in its cellar is also ideal for the job.)
Promptly add four pounds of sugar to the still-hot liquid
and stir the solution until the sweetening is completely
dissolved. Then, after the mixture has cooled to room
temperature, sprinkle one ounce of dry wine yeast
across its surface.

Cover the crock with a clean cloth and let it sit at room
temperature for two weeks. Then, with a short length of
sterilized plastic hose, siphon the liquid (but
not the bottom inch or so of dregs) into a
sterilized gallon jug. The mouth of the jug is next covered
with a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap which is held in
place with a rubber band just tightly enough to keep
vagrant bacteria and yeast out . . . but not so tightly
that fermenting gas in the container can’t escape. Store
the jug in a warm (but not hot), out-of-the-way place until
its contents have quit “working” and all fermentation has
ceased.

This fermentation may take several months. Be patient. Only
when the wine is perfectly clear and contains no more
bubbles, should it finally be siphoned into sterilized old
wine or whiskey bottles and sealed with sterile new corks.
(Do not allow the dregs which have former; in the gallon
jug to siphon into the bottles as they’re filled.)

Label your bottles of wine and store them on their sides in
a dark cellar. Their corks, if properly set, will not dry
out and little or no seepage will take place. Like many
other good things, this pea pod wine improves with age. We
generally make the beverage in three-gallon batches. If you
prefer to do the same, just triple all the ingredients
given above.

Don’t try to feed the wet solids (pods, pieces of citrus,
etc.), left over from the winemaking, to your rabbits. Your
pigs and chickens, however, will be most pleased to dispose
of them. And if your homestead has no porcine or poultry inhabitants, add the leftovers to your compost pile or bury
them between unmulched rows in the garden. (Just don’t
throw them out on top of the soil someplace where they can
attract flies and other vermin.)

If you’ve followed me this far, you probably won’t be
surprised at the nextand ultimate-step we’ve taken in our
efforts to gain 100% utilization of the peas we grow: Yep!
We now make the old vines from the plants work for us too.

As soon as we’ve harvested all the peas we want or can get
from our plants, we pull the vines and feed them to the
rabbits, chickens, or other livestock. Last summer,
however, we had so many greens to give to our animals at
the time the vines stopped bearing, that we tried something
else: We turned what was left of the pea plants into hay.

Actually, this wasn’t difficult to do . . . even by hand.
We simply placed the vines in small, loose piles and turned
them somewhat carefully (to keep all the leaves from
falling off) every couple of days for a week. The
thoroughly dried plants were then hauled to the barn,
stored, and fed to our livestock during the following
winter.

True, our pea vine hay is much coarser and not as green as
choice alfalfa . . . but the denizens of the barn seem to
appreciate it just the same. They like it so much, in fact,
that we now have a brand new problem on our hands: In the
past we didn’t know what to do with all the old pea vines
from the garden . . . and now we never have enough of the
vines on hand to satisfy everyone who wants them!

Of course, if you don’t have a barnful of livestock the way
we do, there are still other things you can do with old pea
vines. You can, for instance, plant your peas near the
space you’ve reserved in the vegetable patch for cucumbers,
squash, and/or melons. Then, when the peas are finished for
the season (usually by mid-July), you can take your choice:
[1] pull the vines up, run ’em through a shredder, add ’em
to the compost pile, and let the cucumbers, squash, and/or
melons sprawl into the vacated pea rows . . . or [2] just
leave the old vines where they are, chop ’em up a little so
they won’t become entangled in the tines of your rototiller
later in the fall, and allow the cucumber, squash, and/or
melon plants to spread out right over this natural mulch.

To sum up then: Many gardeners find it worthwhile to raise
their own fresh peas “just for the eating of the vegetable
itself”. We don’t. Now that we’ve learned to get additional
value from the pods and vines of the plant, however, fresh
homegrown garden peas are back on our table to stay.