Peas have been cultivated since antiquity across Eurasia and remain a staple cool-season crop in gardens where the window between thawing soil and summer heat is narrow enough to matter. They prefer full sun and moist, well-drained soil with a pH between six and eight, and they will stop producing at temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which in much of North Carolina compresses the useful growing season significantly. Sow seeds directly an inch deep as soon as the ground thaws; young plants tolerate light frost. Staggering plantings a week apart extends the harvest.

The range within this species is considerable: round, starchy garden peas with fibrous pods, flat snow peas harvested immature, and sugar snap peas with plump, sweet pods worth eating whole. Vining types grow all season and yield over a longer period; bush types produce all at once. Vining varieties benefit from a trellis to keep them off the ground and reduce disease pressure. Peas fix nitrogen, making them a genuine contribution to soil health, and certain varieties are grown specifically as cool-season cover crops under the name Austrian winter pea.