Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Time for Peas!

Around here gardeners like to plan events in the garden according to Holidays. St. Patrick's Day is when they say you should plant peas, so I dutifully built my pea trellises and planted peas last Sunday (the day before St. Patty's Day).

May Dreams Gardens is just a couple hours away from me and she planted peas on Sunday too.

Maybe it's not just around here where gardeners shoot for pea planting on the Irish holiday because peas were planted in Skippy's Vegetable Garden on St. Patrick's day too.

I also noticed that VegMonkey and Sustainable Garden have their peas up and growing already. I'm sure there are other bloggers who planted peas too.

Building the pea trellises are a big deal to me because I haven't been this organized in recent years. I also bought new trellis netting that has the large squares. I used to love it and am excited to have it again. After the peas are harvested I will grow cucumbers on one trellis and pole beans on the other, using the same netting.

I was able to "weave" the wood supports through the netting and I stapled the bottom part. Here is a picture that my wife sneaked of me finishing the first trellis:

The bed behind me also received a trellis but it got dark before we could get a picture of them both.

If you don't want to spend the money on pre-made trellis netting, there is a great post on Backyard Granger about how to make your own with twine. There is another great explanation on how to make a trellis with wood and twine from last year on Compost Bin. Maybe someday I'll use twine but for now I'm content to use the ready-made trellis material.

I'm a bit proud of myself for building the trellis before I planted the peas. Usually I would go in reverse order and then "not have time" to build a trellis, leaving my peas a tangled mess with no support. So now I have built the two trellises and a coldframe. Here they are together:

I love building garden structures. Next up? Something else I didn't manage to build last year - a fence to keep the coons out of my corn!

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring! How exciting!

7 comments:

Anonymous

Well I planted mine weeks ago but given they are just starting to germinate now, maybe I should have been a little more patient :)

Anonymous

Yikes, it's time for peas! Thanks for the reminder. :)

Yes, reverse order is my standard order. Unfortunately, my wife protests until I dismantle my trellises each fall. So I'll have to build some more.

Love that cold frame. Nice work.

Anonymous

Peas and goodwill to all.

Nice trellis.

Matron

I've never heard of the tradition of sowing peas on St Patricks day. Perhaps a modern invention since in the USA everything turns green! I always plant my new potatoes on Good Friday, this is centuries old tradition. Another I know of is that you only prune a box hedge on Christmas Day and Derby day!

Carol Michel

You are planning for some tall peas. My vines won't be that vigorous.

When my Dad was alive and planting his garden every spring, he wrote "sowed March 6th" on a packet of pea seeds. So though he tried to plant around St. Pat's Day, if it was warmer earlier, he'd plant them.

I don't believe my peas have sprouted yet, but "any day" now.

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

Amy Urquhart

Those supports are terrific! I'd love to have something like that. I'll be showing your photos to my husband (hint, hint).

Playing in the Dirt

Jeph

Wow - both your trellis and the cold frame look great!! And a gardener who's well prepared IN ADVANCE on something like that? Shocking! LOL Seems like most stories I read, we all want to get the seeds in the dirt NOW and figure out the technicalities later...

Our last frost date here in NE Ohio is a week or two after yours I believe (something like May 21?), and I just planted peas (and carrots, lettuce and spinach) Tuesday evening. I figured I was behind, but this is my first year with my own yard (as opposed to a rental plot), so I'm not used to having access to my own planting space so early! Plus we kept having snow storms....didn't figure the peas would appreciate that.

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