Peas, Please!

Arrived home from work and promptly picked 3.3 pounds of shelling peas, 2.5 pounds of sugar snap peas, and 4 heads of broccoli. Had to stop because my basket was full.

Time to get creative! And also, to start giving produce away. Any takers?

Green with Envy

You know how some annoying treehuggers go on and on about how home-grown and organic food tastes so much better than what the rest of us chumps can buy at the supermarket? Well, I'm here to break the news that yes, it does.

In other words, the payoff has begun! Last night was the first time this season that Mark explained to me the odd sensation of not feeling panicked about the garden. The steep incline of toil is beginning to level out, and the garden is already starting to pay out in pounds of snap peas and picture-perfect heads of broccoli.

Smugness aside, there's some science behind the fact that there's no substitute for a freshly picked pea. It simply has no shelf life because the sugars start to convert to starch immediately after picking. And those incredibly sweet, juicy strawberries we've been picking at Genesis Farm wouldn't even make it to the grocery store. Half of mine are a bloody pulp by the time I drive home and put them in a bowl.

The volume of peas we have is unbelievable, even though we didn't get a chance to trellis them, which Mark was afraid would be disastrous. We haven't had any animals noshing on our goods besides flea beetles, and even they seem to be under control thanks to some mysterious beneficial insect. The deer have eaten a few pea shoots that latched onto the fence, but we aren't plagued by rabbits or groundhogs even though we still haven't had the opportunity to bury the extra bit of chicken wire around the perimeter. Which means we're picking a huge bowlful of peas every couple of days, and still we can't keep up. An awesome problem to have, for sure.

Appease

Planted the peas last night. This is the earliest point in the season we've managed to get our peas in the ground. The weather was perfect; the soil was moist but not soggy from a steady drizzle all day. The ground was cold but workable, since the daytime soil temperature in the raised beds is significantly higher. Of course, this can be a detriment as well, since the temperature range can change much faster in the reduced soil volume of the raised beds. But once the peas have sprouted, this becomes less of an issue. We did miss the boat as far as the lunar planting schedule goes, but we'd rather take our chances now than wait another 2 or 3 weeks to get the peas started. Planting delays in years past have resulted in decreased yields, and we really want to take advantage of the pea plant's affinity for cold weather.

To speed germination, we pre-sprouted the peas 48 hours in advance by sandwiching the seeds between 2 layers of damp paper towels with some plastic wrap on top. After two days, about 50% of the peas had sprouted and all were noticeably swollen with water. In addition to pre-sprouting, we decided to use pea inoculant for the first time this year. Inoculant is an organic, naturally occuring bacteria that allows legumes to more easily fix nitrogen. The nitrogen is pulled out of the soil and 'fixed' to the plant roots in the form of storage nodules. In addition, the nodules help keep nitrogen in the soil even after the plant has died. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant health but is ephemeral in soil when not bound up in some kind of molecule. Nitrogen fixing is the primary objective when planting legumes such as clover and alfalfa as cover crops. We will also be employing bean inoculant at planting time in May.

The inoculant is packaged as a dry powder but is best applied directly to the peas by creating slurry with water. After thoroughly coating the peas, they should be planted as soon as possible. This isn't easy when your assistant is a two-year-old, but it can be done, especially since said two-year-old is easily distracted by shovels and dirt. Of course, immediately after planting, we received a light dusting of snow overnight. This shouldn't be a problem for the peas (famous last words) but we'll be keeping our fingers crossed anyway. The next step is to throw some row covers over the beds to keep the damn squirrels and possibly toddlers out. Although neither critter seems interested in devouring the peas, they are both attracted to recently disturbed soil and should be regarded as pests. Then again, the common house cat seems partial to napping on top of row covers as well, so you really can't win. Nature sucks.

First Peas

They're like spring bursting in your mouth.

Tempting