I’ve been struggling with my peas this autumn. Because of all my woes, on May 22nd I started a trial to see if I could get better success by germinating my dead, old snow peas in a damp paper towel. I’m not sure if I’ve found that elusive success or not – I have to wait a bit longer.
Here are the peas after 1 week of the damp towel treatment. Lots of mould but a few sprouts as well.
Frank’s been keeping a critical eye on this mess and he’s informed me a few times that I’m growing mould and should probably throw it away. But I’m not ready to surrender. Yesterday I separated 4 of the best sprouts, threw away 3 of the mouldiest and sort of rubbed the mould off the remainders. I changed the paper towel and am letting the experiment continue.
The 4 sprouted peas went into the ground on the front, inside post. There is actually one small shoot at that pole and one at the other front pole from one of my previous attempts. Maybe I just have the laziest peas in history?
The peas sown on the 16th of April are starting to flower. At least I have 2 flowers. Not one to rush to conclusions, I’m thinking planting by the moon isn’t the determining factor in the success of peas. April 16 was a no-plant day. For the record, yesterday, when I sowed the latest sprouts, was the first quarter phase, ideal for peas. But will it be enough?
Update 4 June 2012: Today I gave up. I pulled 6 snow peas out of the mouldy morass that I had created in between some kitchen paper. Yuck! Anyway, these half-dozen peas had sort of sprouted so they were planted by the front, outside pole. Then there were the rest. I dumped them in a hole by the same pole and covered them with dirt. Never to been seen again, I’m sure.
When that was done I sowed a bunch more normal peas in gaps around the pea poles. These will hopefully not only be seen, but tasted as well.
Today is the first day of the full moon. Never sow or plant out within 12 hours of the phase change and the full moon is the phase for root vegetables. Not that I’m paying attention, but if I was, I should have done this pea planting yesterday. Oh well.
Laura Rittenhouse's Gardening Journal 
The few plants you have look healthy – I find that pea seeds don’t germinate if they get a tad bit old – same as corn. that is why I plant the whole packet each year – not sure how many I have that come up – but I figure better in the ground than in the packet. I think a lot of my problems come from mold and fungus etc, so yes that mold bothers me too… 😉 I think there are so many other determining factors that planting by the moon is the least of my worries.
I’m afraid I agree with you about the moon. I was hoping I’d discover a miracle that would turn my garden from a hit-and-miss affair to something reliably amazing. I think I’m going to have to stick with bent back and fingers crossed to find my successes.