Sugar Snap Pea Harvest

The sugar snap harvest was pretty successful this year, I guess as far as it goes with the short springs here that get hot so quickly.

Above is the first harvest I got from the peas that were interplanted with trombocino squash in full sun. I picked them on June 12th, and pulled the plants out that same day because they already had started turning brown. Plus I wanted to give more room to the squash as soon as possible.That same day I picked these from the other side of the yard. Since these plants were in part shade, they hadn't yet started turning brown. There were a lot more peas on the vines but they hadn't plumped up yet so I left them in to grow some more and see how much longer they'd last.

This is the second batch harvested from those plants on June 20th. There are some more peas left on the vines that need picking as of today, but June was really hot this year so even these vines are half brown now too. So that's pretty much it for peas 2010.

Peas: From Harvest to Plate

Well, looks like my peas are about done for this season. I pulled the bush peas out this weekend. The sugar snaps are still there, but only have a few flowers. I think the high temps predicted towards the end of this week will be the end.

Overall, I'm moderately happy with the harvest. I honestly had hoped for more, but as you'll see from the pics below, I got enough for 3 big bowls. They were really delicious. I am going to replant the sugar snaps in August for a fall crop. And next spring, I will definitely try the Agribon to extend the harvest. This year they didn't get above a few inches until it warmed up in May, so I think that is going to be key to getting more peas. So without further ado, here are the pics.

Sugar Snaps (and lettuce) on June 2nd

Dark Seeded Early Perfection Peas & Strawberries

The harvest bowl. I got another bowlful about a week later filled about twice as much, and another this weekend filled almost all the way.

The plate: Garden Salad w/ Creamy Tarragon Herb Dressing, Cold Peanut Butter Soba Noodles covered in peas, carrots & cukes, lemon pepper cucumber slices, and strawberries. (berries, herbs & lettuce also just picked). Above on the shell plate was Red Pepper Bean Dip w/ oregano + Herb Onion Tofu dip w/ broccoli and cauliflower.

I'll update this with the Peanut Butter Noodles recipe when I get home tonight. It is so simple, yet so good. Definitely one of my favorite go-to dishes. Here is the bean dip recipe, I just added extra roasted red peppers instead of the pimentos. And this is the tofu dip recipe, plus chopped herbs and a packet of onion soup mix.

p.s. I know my camera skills need to improve. My camera is actually half broken at the moment, I dropped it and part of the lens fell off. Sooner or later I'll get a new one, and make sure to read the manual this time!

Pea Update

It's been just about 32 days since I planted all those peas. I thought they were all doing pretty well. They look healthy and some are now about 3-4 inches tall.

But then I just looked at this post about the same dark-seeded early perfection peas I planted last fall. At 33 days old, last year they were WAY bigger than the ones I have now. I have them now on the same trellis, but they haven't even reached the bottom rung yet (see above), whereas the ones in the pic from last year are above the second rung and already have a few flowers!

As you can see on the right I have the sugar snaps on a bigger 6 foot tall trellis, but they haven't reached the bottom rung yet either.

I think they must just grow really slowly in the cold weather we've been having. It even snowed again yesterday morning. Just flurries, but overall this spring has been the coldest I remember in a long time. Bummer.

I planted them early because it gets so hot and humid here pretty quickly in June, and everything I read says that will kill peas. And if it takes 60 days for them to mature, that doesn't seem to leave enough time if I didn't plant them until April.

Darn! I was really looking forward to tasty peas! I really hope they grow faster once the weather warms up.

This is proving to me that I really need that Abgribon. I wanted to try a little wire hoop house type row cover setup. But the stuff is still on backorder. On March 26th they said it won't be mailed until April 10th or later. :-(

Here's a close up of the sugar snaps:

End of March: Wonderful News!

Despite having freezing cold nights at the beginning of this week, all of the veggies I planted outside are growing! I went outside Thursday and couldn't believe my eyes, all of the peas I planted (both types) are peeking out of the soil. I counted them last night - there are nearly 40 pea sprouts. The arugula also survived the cold, and the whole row looks great. We even have two radish sprouts.

The inside seedlings are still ok, though leggy. I'm going to harden off the lettuce this week then plant them deep so hopefully they'll recover once in the garden. Of course, as you can see below the cut-and-come again tray of extra seedlings I didn't even plan to plant is looking way better than the leggy lettuce in individual containers! Oh the irony.

I'm getting excited now for the next few weeks in April. Lots of things to be planted. I made another plan (yes, I couldn't help it haha) for exactly when to plant the seedlings according to the moon cycles. I went with different dates since the Farmer's Almanac seemed to early considering the cold weather we've been having, based on the conventional wisdom that leafy plants with seeds on the outside go in the first quarter, annuals with seeds on the inside second quarter, root veggies and perennials in the 3rd and nothing in the 4th. I don't know if it is bubkus or not, but I figure there is no harm in trying since it is pretty much right on time as far as the weather anyway. This is the plan for the next two weeks:

Today:

• Pre-germinate radish seeds for early (non-moon) planting in the next few days. I want to put these in early where I will plant warm weather veggies in May so they'll be ready for harvest by then. It will be interesting to compare them to the later moon sown radishes, although I won't know if any difference is due to the moon or just warmer weather.

4/1 or 4/2:

• Start flowers inside - Tray 1 = Calendula (10 flashback, 5 octoberfest), Marigold (2), Bergamot (3 fitulosa + 3 didyma) & Garlic Chives (2)
  
• Tray 2 = Nasturtium (10 climbing, 5 empress, 6 whirlybird), Balloon Flower (2), Mallow (2)
• Tray 3 = Hollyhock (15) & English Daisy (10)
• Direct sow more lettuce & arugula plus mustard greens, mache and chard
• Transplant lettuce seedlings

4/4 or 4/5:

• Direct-sow a couple more peas to fill in any empty spots

4/11 or 4/12:

• Direct-sow turnips, beets, carrots & more radishes
• Plant purchased berries outside - raspberries, blueberries and strawberries

Sweet! My First Spring Pea

At least I think that's what this is. I noticed it on Saturday, in just the right spot where we planted the Sugar Snaps outside under the trellis. Looks a little crinkly but I think it's the first pea to grow this season! I can't wait for fresh peas mm mmm.

I also planted the Dark Seeded Early Perfection Pea variety leftover from last fall, but none of those have sprouted yet as far as I can see.

Then last week, in the middle of the night- I was a midnight poker! Not a joker, or a smoker, but a seed poker. (oh my) Don't know what came over me, must have been the warm weather I guess- but I decided I just had to plant a row of arugula about 11:30 at night. hahaha None of them have sprouted yet either.

Finally, last night we started some radishes. It was still a bit too cold, my soil thermometer said 46-47, but the package said ideal soil temp for radishes is 55 - 80. So I only planted 1 sq. foot with 5 white radish and 6 easter egg radish seeds as an experiment. I hope they grow!

Sweet Peas!

Ahh, sweet peas, so cute and absolutely delicious. They were probably my favorite fall crop this year. I planted them from seed around August 3rd. It was around 12 seeds, two on each side of the three trellis legs and two in the middle of each side. Here you can see what they looked like on September 6th, and a close up of the first beautiful butterfly shaped white flower:

Unfortunately, I only planted one trellis with them, and harvested maybe about 30 pods or so altogther, 5 - 10 at a time on a couple different days. It wasn't nearly enough to cook anything with, so we just ate them plain straight out of the pod. Amazingly enough, that was the first time I ever had a pea out of the pod in my life. So good! Next spring I am going to plant about 10 more of these plants!!

As you can see from this picture taken on October 6th, the plant never really got very tall. The leaves also turned yellow along the bottom. I'm not really sure why. There are no new flowers or pods on it now, so I assume it is done for the season. Bummer.

P.S. My garden survived the first frost thanks to the measures taken in the last post. Or, maybe it didn't end up frosting is more like it. When I let JJ out around 8AM, the ground seemed damp but not icy. Well, at least it survived! It may frost again tomorrow night so we'll see how much longer it can last.