Pea shelling is an art, one I learnt so young that I perform it automatically, thumbs opening the narrow side of the pod then a quick push, ejecting the peas into the saucepan with one hand while the pod is thrown into the chook bucket with the other. The process takes about 1.7 seconds, including picking up the next pod to be podded.

In my childhood, women would make a small ritual of pea podding, sitting together gossiping with buckets of freshly picked peas and a frequently refreshed teapot and sometimes a plate of pikelets.

Once you get the knack, podding peas for dinner for four takes about five minutes – well worth it for the joy of true pea flavour. Half a bucket of peas could be kept in the fridge or the freezer to feed the family for a week.

Even my mother's cooking couldn't spoil a dish of fresh peas. They were one of the chief joys of dinner, till the local grocer bought a freezer. Peas are one of the few vegies that just need boiling. Under-boiling just gives you slightly harder peas. Over-boiling makes them mushy, but still a delight. Frozen peas may keep their texture and sweetness reasonably well, but they don't have much flavour.

This may not be the fault of the freezing. I was once at the dinner table of a commercial pea grower. At last, all the fresh peas I could eat! I heaped my plate, then had to paste on a polite smile as I ate them. They were as tasteless fresh as they would have been after freezing.

The moral of this story is to grow an old-fashioned variety. The second is to cut out this article and keep it to refer to in late summer: it is now too late to plant peas, though it is the perfect time to hunt them out at farmers' markets, pod them, cook them, eat them and fall so in love with them that you'll remember to grow them for an autumn harvest and then again for a spring one.

Peas are an ancient crop grown as far back as the days of Homer throughout Europe, Asia Minor and China, where women probably gathered together to pod them, too. They were one of the staple foods of medieval Europe, mostly eaten dried and recooked as pease porridge, as in"

"Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old."

Fresh peas gained popularity under Elizabeth I, a great gourmet (the love of food often goes with great intelligence) although even today dried peas are still used for such glories as pea sauce and pea and ham soup. Don't condemn dried peas if you've eaten today's tasteless packaged things – if you dry your own you'll find they are sweet and good – as different as your own fresh peas will be from commercial rubbery ones.

Plant peas so they are setting seed in cool weather. If the weather is over 24C you won't get peas.

Sow pea seeds about 5cm deep – about as deep as they are wide – and about 2 cm apart. I plant two peas seeds together, so they twine around and help support each other and in case one pea is taken by ants or eaten by snails there'll still be one there.

I prefer climbing peas – the short varieties still tend to collapse – and who wants to crouch down to harvest them? Climbing peas need a trellis to climb on – the taller the better, as some can ramble up two metres high or more. Even dwarf peas do best with some support. Once established, they don't need weeding once they've clambered up their trellis – they grow above the weeds. Trellis-grown peas seem more disease-resistant too.

Peas need fertile soil to thrive, though too much nitrogen will promote leaves at the expense of the peas and may inhibit the fruit set. Try scattering a handful of dolomite every square metre just before planting.

An effective old-fashioned pea-fertilising technique involved planting peas in rows of trenches filled with compost – about as wide and deep as the length of your thumb, or just scattering compost down a row and pressing the pea seed into it. The young peas will be given a boost by the compost and you can give them fortnightly doses of liquid manure, preferably plant rather than manure-based, so it's not too high in nitrogen.

If you don't have compost, try mulching the peas well when they first emerge and scattering on any of the quick-fix organic fertilisers. I find peas respond best to a loose mulch between rows, like hay or corn stalks instead of grass clippings or leaves. Denser mulches promote stem rots and mildew during wet weather, particularly in cool conditions where evaporation is low and dews may be heavy.

If you are truly dedicated, pea vines can also be hilled with compost or soil or mulch. Peas are very susceptible to heat and drought and this insulates their roots and helps keep in moisture. The peas will also be less likely to fall over with wind or the weight of moisture on their leaves after rain or watering.

Peas also need ample oxygen in the soil – they do badly on compacted or waterlogged soil and mulch is a good preventative and cure for both.

Powdery mildew is the main pea crop destroyer after wallabies, possums, bower birds, kids looking for a snack after school (peas straight from the pod are delicious raw) and hail storms. If you get a powdery covering on foliage that then begins to die off, you have powdery mildew.

Prevention is easier than cure: stake the peas so air can flow around them. In humid areas, angle the rows so wind flows down them, not across, maximising the area exposed to the wind. Spray with seaweed spray or compost water as a preventive measure. Cover compost with water and use when it turns pale brown and keep covered so mozzies don't breed there.

Always clean upall the old leaves and stalks after a crop of peas, as they will probably be infected and may pass on the early infection to the next crop.

Peas take about 12 weeks to mature, though some like Early Massey will crop faster. If you treat your peas well and they don't cark it early from powdery mildew, you'll be able to keep picking them for at least two months.

Pick peas when the pods are well filled but while the pods are still tender. Older, fatter peas don't taste as good. They are sweetest and less rubbery if they are picked in the cool of the day – best in the morning, or in the evening after dusk, just before you cook them.

Peas are one of the truly foolproof seeds – just let your peas dry on the vine and choose the biggest, best and earliest or latest maturing. Peas are self-pollinating, so are fairly safe to come true to type, but separate them from other pea varieties just in case.

Start planning your pea plot now. In temperate areas (cardigans in winter and a coat at night) they can be planted from February to June, avoiding sowing in months with really cold days as well as frosty nights, as seed may rot if there isn't enough warmth for them to germinate.

In cold areas, where at least two layers of wool are necessary, plant from July to October (though seed may rot if the soil is very cold or badly drained). Plant again in late January or early February as long as it's not during a heat wave for autumn-maturing peas.

Peas germinate between 7C and 24C, but do best at above 13C. Avoid growing peas if the temperature will go above 24C for more than two hours a day. Seedlings will emerge in seven to ten days.

Dwarf peas will start to crop after 12 to 16 weeks. Climbing peas take 14 to 16 weeks but will continue to crop for several months. You'll need at least a two- to four-metre row on a fence or trellis to be able to plant enough climbing peas for a small, reasonably greedy family.

And with fresh, sweet peas, and the conversations that come about life and the universe as you pod them, your family will be greedy.

RECIPES

Fresh peas need nothing else. Just cover with water – no salt – and simmer till tender. The time will vary. Very tiny peas (one of the most exquisite things in the world) take only about two minutes. Larger peas may take five minutes, but no more.

If your peas are slightly older, add some of their pea pods to the pot to give more flavour, or add a little honey to the water (not sugar – the taste isn't as good).

Choose a goat's cheese that is soft, white and doesn't taste like a billy goat looking for romance. Avoid the sour goat's cheeses. This may need a fair amount of tasting at the deli, which is no hardship at all.

Cook a generous bowl of peas. Place in a heatproof bowl. Scatter on the cheese while very hot, place the bowl in the oven for one minute to heat the cheese through, and serve at once.

Serves 4

4 cups of of freshly cooked peas
4 heaped tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
4 tbsp double cream
¾ cup cooked pasta per person
Generous grinding of black pepper

Mix the hot vegies with the pasta in a saucepan; add cheese and cream, stir in at a high heat for 30 seconds, then serve hot and delicious.

2 cups fresh peas
3 cups stock – chicken, or made from poached pea pods
6 lettuce leaves
3 tbsp cream
nutmeg

Simmer peas and lettuce in the stock for 10 minutes. Scoop out the lettuce. Puree and serve with a dash of cream and a dust of nutmeg.

* deeply breathing in the scent of port wine magnolia (really a michelia) as I walk down the stairs;

* gobbling mulberries, artichokes, asparagus, old parsnips and new potatoes;

* watching rose after rose burst into bloom;

* planning on planting two more apricot trees, as soon as I can find the apricot trees; and

* possibly splurging on two or three more grevilleas – for the birds, of course, not me, a duty really, not an indulgence at all;

* trying to get all the frozen stewed apple in the freezer eaten before the next crop ripens. Anyone for crumble?