Planting cool-season vegetables

It's getting close to time to start think about planting a first round of peas (in the next few weeks). It's time at least for us anxious Southern US gardeners, who are ready to get out there, but have been delayed by cold and wet this winter.

It's always dicey planting in spring; the soil's cold, it's been exceptionally cold and wet, the seeds probably will just rot, etc. etc. But, hot weather comes on its own schedule, and you never know whether we'll have a long cool spring, or a brutal arrival of summer in late April or early May.

The bigger mistake is to wait too late and have pea vines shrivel in the heat. So, successive plantings from mid-February to mid-March spread the risk, and up the possibilities of harvesting some nice garden, snow, or snap peas, but even then, I'm delighted to have a decent harvest.

(Hmm, I just thought about the ROWS of snow peas I saw this winter in Dalat, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, a perpetual spring-like climate. The rows of vines were LOADED with snow peas ready for harvest. Hmmph.)

Fortunately, most of my vegetable beds are largely ready for late winter and early spring sowings of peas, lettuce, spinach, and greens. The beds are covered by a nice layer of mulch and were amended following harvest last fall. Amazingly, the flats of collards and kale have hung on through hard freezes, so are ready to take off with a bit of warmer weather.

But, the weather isn't cooperating; it's going to be totally cold again this weekend, hardly winter-annual weeding weather. (Fortunately, they're not growing quickly in the beds with garlic and shallots).

Much of the main vegetable garden will be in root-knot nematode-quelling (I hope) cover crops this summer such as French marigolds. With a basically fallow year, I'm hoping that their numbers will be greatly reduced. The satellite garden has lots of garlic already planted and onion sets to come, ordered from Dixondale Farms. I'll tuck some tomatoes and peppers in those beds, too, but only hardy varieties that won't need much attention.

In their place, I'm planning to put in raised beds on the end of the driveway of our small house in the mountains (where the arrow points).

Filled with fresh (more or less sterile) soil, they should provide ideal conditions for growing beans, squash, chard, greens, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and cucumbers. We're planning a trellis with beans, cucumbers and tomatoes between our house and the adjacent building (marked to the right on the image).

That's my gardening companion and gardening assistant there, too.

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Time to plant the first peas

It was a perfect late winter day here, temperatures in the upper 60's (°F), sunny and warm. It felt more like spring. The winter honeysuckle was covered in honey bees foraging for nectar.

After a weekend away largely spent on indoor house activities (yuck), it was nice to return home and spend an hour or so turning over the remaining beds, sowing a first series of snap peas (Sugar Sprint) and garden peas (Wando and Maestro), a round of arugula, and a flat of mixed lettuce, to go in the cold frame when the weather turns cold again.

I replanted some favas (broad beans), too, mainly as an experiment, since I think there may not be time for a crop to mature before it gets too hot. My fall planting of favas had a few blackened survivors still with healthy-looking roots, but it was really way too cold this winter for most normally winter hardy greens. Even collards show signs of frost damage.

This week looks like it will be mild; I'm going to continue to put in onion sets and sow more early greens.

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Ready for winter (light)

I'm so glad that we're finally beginning to think about winter vegetable gardening here in the Southern U.S. I just listened to a podcast this morning from BBC Gardens Illustrated, where Sarah Raven talked about how in the U.K., folks are growing more crops through the winter.

Uh, we get a LOT more light in the winter that British gardeners do -- why not take advantage of it? I put together a new cold frame today (it's a good thing I don't earn my living as a carpenter), but I'm thinking about coaxing some of the more tender winter greens through colder times.

I'm delighted that my English (garden) peas are flowering profusely now. I may actually be able to harvest some English peas this fall (I've already harvested about 10 peas -- whoopee!)

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Garden peas

It's fun to try new things. All it takes is some seeds and prepared soil. I've had a number of spots ready, and now, after 4 days of rain (thankfully due to Tropical Storm Fay), the soil is well-hydrated for now, at least.

I thought I'd try shelling peas this fall -- 'Maestro' and 'Wando' look like good varieties to try for our climate. So I pre-germinated this first batch, and have just finished tucking them into the soil.

I think that I'll try succession plantings over the next month, just to see what timing might be best. It's supposed to be back up to 90°F on Friday; young peas won't like that heat, but hopefully it will cool down before the seedlings emerge above ground!

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A rose, and thinking about fall...

Is it fall yet?

I feel like a kid asking, are we there yet? August days are trying for gardeners and nature watchers in the southern U.S. It's the worst time of our gardening year, actually -- even in 'good' years, it's hot and often dry. This year, we've already hit 100° in the first week of August. And hardly a drop of rain in the forecast.

The cutting from the hardy rose at the corner of the house is flowering beautifully, two hummingbirds are chasing each other outside my window, and I'm harvesting tomatoes, squash, and yardlong beans (the regular beans are sulking in the heat), so I'm grateful for that. And, the dry weather, unlike our usual humid summer days, makes mornings and evenings quite pleasant, instead of sticky.

But I'm enjoying thinking about fall vegetables, tough fall-flowering perennials, and fall color. The lettuces, mustard, and mesclun mixes in flats are doing well, although I'm waiting to sow some other things until conditions are actually favorable for germination.

I'm eager to try garden peas this fall, although they sound like something that is totally unsuitable for our climate. I've had good success with spring crops of sugar snap peas and snow peas, but never thought about trying garden peas (English peas, or shelling peas) before.

Seeing Rob's lovely photo in a post about his peas (and flocking pigeons) got me thinking about it. Hmm, peas would be fun (and my gardening companion loves peas with rice at Thanksgiving dinner)... So now I've got pea seeds, supposedly suitable for growing in warm climates, ready to go.

This morning, I was listening to a gardening podcast (Ken Druse Real Dirt) in which his co-host Vicki Johnson waxed enthusiastic about the virtues of fresh peas (which are legendary, of course), and has me even more eager to try. I'm going to try succession plantings in shadier areas starting in late August through mid September. And then I'll hope for a long (cool) fall. I like Ken and Vicki's podcast; it's quirky, and often gets off topic, but is often full of interesting environmentally-friendly gardening tidbits.

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