Tennessee Ernie Ford had a catchphrase: “Bless your pea-picking heart.”
This week I was a genuine pea picker.
I started not to sow peas in my garden this year. They seem like a lot of work and garden space for not very much return, but peas are one of just a few vegetables you can plant in March and when rotated, that space can yield two crops in a small garden. I also had a half bag of Wetzel pea seeds that was two years old, and rather than toss them, I planted, figuring if they didn’t sprout in a week, I would plant something else. In exactly one week, the peas popped up – every single one. Apparently, leaving a bag of seed in your shed for two years is no big deal.
My timing, for a change, was perfect. I saw a few pods last week that appeared ripe, but I delayed, and when I finally went out to pick, almost every pod was full, so I only had one picking. There were not enough blooms on the rest to make much of a crop, so I will plow them under this week and try my hand at something else.
I picked the peas about 4 o’clock that afternoon and we had them for dinner a few hours later. They were scrumptious. There is nothing like fresh vegetables from a garden, but peas are something else. They are full of sugar when first picked. They are pretty good eaten raw, Nancy snatched a few from my stash, but later I boiled them briefly, adding only a bit of salt.
I learned a few things about peas that may help improve next year’s harvest.
I should have known better, but I stuck in some small trellis pieces, about a foot and a half high, which the peas immediately climbed then went further. Next time, I’ll use a 3 foot trellis.
Peas, I also discovered, don’t need a lot of nitrogen because they can make it themselves. Being legumes, they can actually snatch their own nitrogen from the air itself. Interestingly, a relatively dry spring is good for peas because it makes their roots go deeper, resulting in healthier, stronger vines. And that’s what I had.
Though peas can be sowed in rows as I did this year, they also do well when planted in circles around the base of a tomato cage. They shoot right up the cage for easier picking.
I’ll try that next year, but I guess I’ll have to buy new seeds.