Rebsie Fairholm is a heritage vegetable expert. She knows so much about open-pollinated crops that she has turned her hand to breeding a few of her own, and documents her progress on her lovely blog. And from now on, each month Rebsie will share her top heritage crops with F&F readers. Hooray!
Up until 100 years ago, every gardener did their own vegetable breeding, either by crossing them by hand or just selecting the plants that did best in their garden. With the rise of commercial seeds the practice has died out, but it is still something all gardeners can do, on any scale. You don’t need to be a scientist or have access to a large field. All you need is a little patience and an open mind. Plus you can eat your mistakes…
One of the projects I’m currently perfecting is my Luna Trick pea.
Luna Trick is a tall edible-podded pea with golden yellow pods. The pods are shaped like crescent moons and the flavour is exquisite. It grows to around 7ft and has beautiful elegant white flowers. I’m actually working on two different versions, one with wide mangetout-type pods and the other with plump juicy sugarsnap pods.
I began my Luna Trick project three years ago with a simple cross between two different peas. I simply transferred some pollen from one variety onto the flowers of another, to create some hybrid seeds. The mother plant was a heritage pea variety called Golden Sweet. It has edible pods of a pale lemon yellow, very beautiful, but they tend to go bitter and stringy unless you eat them very young. To improve its flavour and tenderness, I crossed it with a modern sugarsnap pea called Sugar Ann.
The result of the cross was lots of diversity, as all the genes from the two varieties reshuffled and came out with all sorts of exciting variants. There were even some with pink and white flowers, and rainbow coloured seeds – traits not seen in either parent! Among the variants was one single plant with the most delicious golden mangetout pods I’d ever tasted. This plant became the prototype for Luna Trick.
You can find instructions on my blog for how to cross peas (and tomatoes). It’s easy and fun, and I would encourage anyone to give it a go.
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peter mulryan
Great to see you are writing again, I look forward to seeing how you are getting on with Luna Trick and your other projects. Peter