Farm Beat: Could peas bring Miss America to Modesto?

Hey, kids! Want a visit from Miss America? Grow some peas!

That prize awaits the student or team that wins a pea-growing contest sponsored this spring by the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture. It challenges kindergarten through fifth-grade students to produce as much volume as possible from 20 seeds.

Betty Cantrell, who is five months into her year as Miss America, will visit the winner’s school or community. She grew up on a Georgia farm and has made “Healthy Children, Strong America” the theme of her reign.

Each online entry must include a photo of the shelled peas in a measuring cup. It also must have a log with observations at each stage – planting, sprouting, first bloom, first pod and harvest.

The contest involves green peas, a common type with inedible pods that also is known as English peas. Snow and snap peas, which have edible pods, need not apply. Students can raise their crops in the ground, in outdoor containers or under the shelter of hothouses or hoop houses.

California, for all of its agricultural diversity, doesn’t really do green peas. They mainly grow in the cooler climes of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Washington, and mostly for canning and freezing. The west side of Stanislaus County does have some black-eyed peas, which also are called black-eyed beans and are sold dry.

The contest organizers chose their crop well. Peas thrive in spring and can be picked well before school’s out for summer. The kids can easily poke the large seeds into the soil, then watch over several days as the sprouts unfurl into vines that climb the stakes. The white blossoms yield pods that swell with one of the healthiest foods around.

Participants must plant the seeds by March 1 and submit the results by May 16. Forms and other information are at www.agfoundation.org/projects.

Here’s hoping we see this headline soon in The Modesto Bee: There she is, Miss America!

ELSEWHERE ON THE GARDEN BEAT: A March 26 workshop near Modesto will offer advice on how to get students to tend to many crops on campus.

The University of California Cooperative Extension is putting on the event, “Creating and Sustaining Your School Garden.” The speakers will include Ed Perry, former extension director for the county, and Anne Schellman, who teaches urban integrated pest management out of Davis.

The workshop will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. at the Stanislaus County Agricultural Center, 3800 Cornucopia Way, off Crows Landing Road. The $50 fee covers lunch, snacks, a book and “make-and-take activities.” Registration information is at 209-525-6800 or http://cestanislaus.ucanr.edu.

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 3:38 PM with the headline "Farm Beat: Could peas bring Miss America to Modesto?."