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Red Ripper Pea

$2499

Red Ripper Pea is an heirloom field pea variety that tastes great and also makes a wonderful cover crop during the warmer months. Long, trailing vines that can be trellised to save space. Vigna unguiculata. 70 days to maturity. 1,500 seeds per lb.

Description

Improve yields with our Granular Garden Soil Inoculant!

Be sure to check out our Cow Pea Growing Guide for more tips & tricks on successfully growing cow peas in your garden.

Red Ripper Pea is an heirloom, open-pollinated cowpea variety that works great as a food/cover crop or wildlife pea. This field pea produces long, trailing vines that can be trellised to save space in the vegetable garden. They grow great on our Hortonova Trellis Netting!

The vigorous plants produce pods at foilage level, location scattered, and that is initially green and turns maroon in color at the dry stage. The peas are a dark red to brown color and can be eaten fresh or allowed to dry on the vine. Pods average 6" in length. Red Ripper performs great in sandy soils that may be nutrient-deficient. It works well as a dual-purpose food crop and cover crop in the summer to replenish nitrogen supplies in your garden soil. A non-crowder pea with a slight curvature, smooth testa, and maroon color at the dry stage.

Red Ripper Pea is a heat-tolerant variety that performs well in drier growing conditions. When planted in spring, it will continue to flower and set new pods into the summer months. It also can be grown as a fall crop when planted in late summer or early fall. A highly bushy, cover crop that is considered as "late maturing".

We recommend planting field peas using a walk-behind planter like our Hoss Garden Seeder. Use a #5 seed plate, but always check the hole size and modify if necessary. Because it has a semi-vining growing habit, allow 3-4' of growing space for each row.

Field peas or cowpeas do very well when planted on double rows. Plant two rows about 6" apart, then skip over 3-4' and plant another double row. This will allow you to maximize garden space and produce more vegetables per square foot of the garden. Peas should be harvested when pods are full and shelling is easy. If the pods do not shell easily, they likely need to stay on the plant longer.

Red Ripper Pea Planting Information

Planting Method: direct seed

When to Plant: after last frost

Planting Depth: 1"

Seed Spacing: 3-4"

Row Spacing: 3-4'

Days to Maturity: 70

Disease Resistance: None

Customer Reviews

Based on 6 reviews
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P
P.
Amazing

These red peas are truly amazing, I
planted last summer and had so many peas my trellis had to be reenforced to hold them all! Very full pods and easy to shell along with a great, almost nutty flavor! (produce well all summer long)

M
Maria Weiner
5 out of 5

Too bad you don't have ten stars. I have been building my first permaculture bed this year, and was facing two simultaneous problems: what to plant in the center of my permaculture bed strip, and how to protect my new plantings from the brutal South Arkansas summer. Hoss Tools advertised on YouTube for the garden shows I follow, and --hey, I'm from Arkansas --what's a Red Ripper Pea? Well, I'm tired of growing (sic) veggies that came here on the Mayflower. I used some one ince pvc and a length of dog wire and planted ten feet of red rippers in April. They sprouted quickly and went into idle until June, when temps reached the high nineties. They raced one another up the trellis and went down the back side as temps were often as not reaching 100 degrees. But my new fruit trees were smiling, as they were in the shade of the vines. Then, yonder comes the most lovely blue violet blossoms I have ever seen. Then the pods. I first replaced the seeds I planted for the coming season. Then I realized that the best way to cook these is as Shelly beans. Absolutely delicious. Next year, I'm growing these on hog panel on 4*4 posts. I also plan to shade the southern and western exposures of my greenhouse. Thanks, Hoss Tools.

A
A neighbor in Alabama
5 out of 5

I thought cow/field peas were supposed to have a much lower germination rate than most other things? My husband and I had never grown field peas before last year. We have eaten them all of our lives and love them so with a big area to finally be able to grow in last year we ordered a one pound bag of the red rippers along with another type of field pea and plenty of inoculate. My husband was completely shocked when the red rippers really started sprouting. He “guesstimated” they had to have germinated at a very bare minimum of 95 percent and dared to say he thought it actually higher than that. Fast forward to this year. We had a few seeds left over from the one pound bag last year (enough for one single, 30’ row). We had read that field pea seed, unlike other seed but rather similar to carrot seed, just does not hold over well from one year to the next. We were expecting either extremely low to no germination. We didn’t even have any inoculate but thought we’d give it a shot just to see what happened. Nearly 100 percent germination again. So, naturally we have a five pound bag and plenty of inoculate (seems to really, really make them “take off”) for a late summer/early fall delicious tasting cover crop for this year.

N
Neighbor in North Alabama
5 out of 5

I thought cow peas were supposed to have a much lower germination rate? Apparently not if you buy them from Hoss, lol. We bought one pound of seed last year from Hoss and planted all but a tiny amount (ran out of space in the garden). My husband did the planting and was going off of the germ rate on the packaging. He was shocked at how many sprouted and stated that although he had no way to know/tell/prove this - that he swears he got at least 95% or higher germination. We did use the inoculant and the peas came up very fast and took off very, very quickly. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. The few leftover seeds that we had from last year were enough to get one single 30 foot row planted. These are cow peas. We've heard that cow peas/field peas are like carrot seeds.. expect to see a huge decrease in germination from one year to the next (if any at all). We had the seed, decided why not at least see if they would germinate... and... if they didn't we were going to plant some more pole beans in that row instead. We didn't have any inoculant. Pretty sure it's a 90% germination rate this year.I tend to try to over-plan or over-estimate a little bit because I like to just factor in for the fact that not everything is going to germinate or make it or thrive. Not sure what Hoss is doing with these seeds but I really need to train myself to stop starting "extra" seedings with Hoss. We planted that one row this year because well... we had a spare row so why not? We love these peas, just everything about them. They taste fabulous, they double as a cover crop, they are easy to grow, easy to harvest, easy to shell and they're just pretty. So, needless to say we had to order the five pound bag this year (along with plenty of inoculant) and come late summer/early fall we will be planting one delicious tasting cover crop.

A
A neighbor in Alabama
5 out of 5

We order a pound of these last year and planted almost the entire bag (not quite). Since cow peas are very well known for just naturally having a lower than average/normal (whatever you want to call it) germ rate my husband made sure to plant the peas very thick. We did use the