The First Pickin' of Peas

Forget Waldo, Where the Peas?

Just before the skies opened up and Noah floated down the Capital Beltway tonight, I ran out to the garden and harvested our first batch of gray dwarf sugar peas. It was only a week or so ago we saw the first purple blossoms drop in favor of very small pods. But tonight, there were almost two dozen pods looking to burst at the seems.

Picking peas can be a bit of a task. First of all, there's a very short window for prime plucking. If you wait a day or two too long, they may lose their sweetness. They get starchy and lose that yum-yum taste. Like most other plants, the longer you wait, the slower the plant will take to grow new fruits. My garden bible (The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch) says the opportune time to pick the pods is when you can feel full-sized peas inside and they do not feel hard. If the skin of the pod is smooth, it's ready to pick. Some peas are picked when the pods are full sized but still flat. But in the case of our sugar peas, the peas have to be full and round.

I didn't pick enough for two servings at dinner. But I'm hoping by tomorrow afternoon we'll have enough to secure a healthy portion on our dinner plates.

Munchkin Munchies

This morning I finally saw the beginnings of sugar pea pods on the vines. We had seen countless purple blossoms open in the past couple days. One blossom on Wednesday turned to three on Thursday, seven on Friday, and almost two dozen by this morning. I only assumed the pods were soon to follow. Sure enough, two pods have begun to form next to each other. If I had to guess, there are probably other pods tucked away in the vines that I have yet to discover.

The fingernail-sized pods join a handful of celebrity tomatoes to make their debut in the garden this week. I had been pinching blossoms for the past week or two on the tomatoes and peppers in order to prevent fruit from forming so early. I know that seems a tad counter-intuitive to be stopping the plant from growing fruit. But early on in the season it's a good idea to do so and allow the plant to focus on growing bigger. I guess the celebrity tomato got a couple past me. But the good news is the celebrity plant is the largest and healthiest in the garden, so I think it can handle fruit development.

In the case of peppers, the plant adapts to pinching the first generation of blossoms and the next round will produce peppers with stronger walls and more flavor.

After Pinching the White Blossom on The Romanian Pepper Plant

For all those gardeners out there, I stress the importance of looking over the plants and keeping them well groomed right now as they grow. That means pinching suckers off the tomato plants, cutting small branches less than an inch or two from ground level, and pinching blossoms on very young plants.

Happy Memorial Day!!!

Pick Your Fairy Tale Reference For This One

I guess I could get cutesy with something from "Jack and the Beanstalk" or "The Princess and the Pea." But forget it...I'm not feeling so Hans Christian Andersen-inspired tonight. It's pouring rain outside...again....and I rushed out to cover my New Mexico chile plants. They're struggling to grow because of over-watering (on my part..not Mother Nature). And for my efforts, I'm pretty soaked.

But I can feel good in knowing my sugar peas are doing wonders over in the back corner of the garden. I started them from seed, or pea, and quickly they have ascended upwards, grasping on to my A-frame trellis.

What's the fairy tale secret? Well, it could be this magic potion suggested to me at the garden center. In the botanical world it's known as garden inoculant. It contains stuff that I could not begin to spell or pronounce. Simply, it's a bacteria that gathers nitrogen. And we all know that nitrogen is a good ally in our garden kingdom.

I followed the instructions and soaked the seeds in inoculent and water before planting them in my pots. The inoculant helps fertilize the soil and promote better growth and yield.
Well, after a month or so, I can safely report the plants are quickly shooting for the sky and grasping onto anything they can. That is why I built the A-frame trellis. One close look shows you how the vines wrap tightly onto anything for support. The trellis so far has done the trick, but last week I had to add an attachment for the plants not close enough to grab onto the original frame (It's also smart to sometimes gently "guide" the vines to wrap onto the support). Within a day or two, the new piece was swallowed up in vines, stalks, and leaves. I'm betting by this weekend, the pea stalks will reach the top of the A-frame.
I haven't seen any pods.But when I do, odds are it will be underneath the trellis. The vines start producing mature peas at the bottom first. So I'll keep my eyes "pea"-led for some in the next week (sorry).