Peas

I'm still being a slack poster so here's a quick update. I planted a crop of dwarf peas and on advice from the seed packet, and some gardening books, I didn't give them any support. They were supposed have "sturdy, compact bushes. What I ended up with was a tangled, mildewy mess. Still, I did get a few meals out of them and today I dug them in along with some weeds and blood and bone so at least they'll make a good green manure for the tomatoes this spring. I also emptied all my old bean and pea packets into the bed which I'll allow to grow for about a month before digging them in too.

I haven't learned my lesson form last season and planted my Telphone Peas at the wrong time. While they are healthy, flowering and starting to set pods the flowers don't begin until a meter above the ground. This is a lot of wasted growth. I need to wait until early spring or get them in at the end of February so they can flower up the full height of the plants.



Podded Out

The peas succumbed to powdery mildew but not before I picked four or five meals out of them, plus regular grazing as I wandered about.. I was pretty pleased with this considering how fresh the bed was when they went in back at the beginning of June.


Today I've pulled down the plants, laid them where they grew, and covered them with some chook poo and straw. One this has broken down I'll dig it in. I wont plant in this until next spring. Tomatoes will go in this bed then as part of my loose crop rotation plan.

In a Pod

I resisted eating peas straight off the bush for a few days so today I could pick enough pods for a small bowl of very sweet peas. Steamed and eaten about five minutes after picking they were perfect.



First pods

I'm nearly ready to pick the first of the peas. It's about 14 weeks after sowing, which is a little slow but not too bad. Again this is probably due to the bed being a bit rich and the flowers appearing late. There are plenty of flowers setting pods now though so should be picking regularly soon. Few will make it to the table though as, if the past is anything to go by, I usually pick these as I wander around the garden and eat them like lollies.

Peas

On the 7th of June I planted two half rows of telephone pole peas then a month later planted the remainder of the rows. They were pretty slow for a while until they hit the sheep poo deeper in the bed. The flowers of the first planting didn't appear until 700mm above the ground. I think this is due to the bed being new, with plenty of food, and the peas being to happy to grow away without bothering to reproduce. The second planting seems to be going the same way. The photo below was taken about three months after sowing.