Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) to go on a rampage.

1911		H. Shearin ‘An Eastern Kentucky Dialect Word-List’ in DN III vii 540: tear up the patch. To rant.
1942		J. Thurber ‘The Catbird Seat’ 🌐 ‘Tearing up the pea patch’ meant going on a rampage. [...] She had brayed at him, ‘Well, don’t tear up the pea patch!’ and gone to the door. [...] ‘Hey,’ Mrs. Barrows yelled from the kitchen, ‘are you tearing up the peapatch?’.
1951		Dly Register (Red Bank, NJ) 19 July 38/3: We have a girl named Marcia who [...] gives with a smile then expects to ‘tear up the pea patch’.
1976		J.W. Dean III Blind Ambition 299: ‘You’ve really been ripping up the pea patch down here,’ [prosecutor Jim] Neal said sarcastically.