Wednesday, April 01, 2015

sowing peas

planting peas IMG_0947
I planted peas yesterday. The soil was nicely thawed and has been thawed for over a week now. I turned it a couple weeks ago, but it froze up soon after that. It thawed again soon after. It's drained well now and certainly workable.

I plant peas by digging a trench about an inch deep and 6 inches wide. I scattered in the peas. (I didn't have inoculant and will add some to the soil as soon as I find some. It's new soil and I want to be sure the nitrogen fixing bacterial are there.) I scatter the pea seeds fairly dense. They can hold each other up this way. I left space between the rows for another planting in a couple weeks.

Grow peas, grow!

10 comments:

Margaret said...

Our soil is defrosted to about 3" now; hopefully I'll be getting my peas in the ground within the next couple of weeks.

Angie said...

Are peas that resilient to frost you can plant them that early before the last frost? Do you cover them once they start emerging then? (I'm anxious to get in my garden, but want to be sure I don't waste my seeds - Central Ontario)

Lara said...

Looks like you had plenty of garden help planting!

I wish my community garden would open early, because I totally feel like I could plant peas right now and get away with it! Instead I'm putting a few seeds in a planter in my new little greenhouse to see what I can get.

kathy said...

Yes, peas are that resilient to frost. As long as the soil isn't muddy, which will happen if it's frozen underneath. If its muddy, the seeds will rot before they sprout. The soil needs to be "workable", all the way down.

Crops that are also very resilient to frost and can be planted once the soil is workable are arugula, spinach and fava beans. Did I miss any?

kathy said...

PS. In a way, its not so much that the plants are so resilient, though they are, but also, the seeds know when to come up. They come up when the temperatures are right. (as long as they don't rot in mud...)

Chris James said...

I am glad to see the ground starting to thaw for good. It is a wonderful time to get the gardens going and it a couple of weeks the warm weather should set in.

Anonymous said...

They are densely seeded. You must know that works well for peas. Dose Skippy approve? Seems he is still considering.






kathy said...

Skippy is considering maybe digging a nice hole in the bed and then rolling in it. He ended up lying down in the path.

Only problem with densely seeded pea seeds is that you get so many peas. Last year I seeded so many they were coming out of my ears by late spring. All of my neighbors got tired of peas. I hope for such bad luck again.

Marian (LondonUK) said...

You also need to allow for the ones that don't make it home! My excuse is it is a healthy snack whilst working!
Marian(LondonUK)

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