We have peas!

After last week's heat wave, things have seriously cooled down around here. Our highs last week? Mid-to-upper 80s!! Now? We're lucky to get out of the 50s some days! And here's what we've woken up to more than once in the last week:


You can see the frost retreating from the backyard as the sun comes up over the house. To be honest, we can't really gripe about the frost because, hey, it's April in Ohio!! Our last average frost date is still something like 6 wks away. But the recent high temps really got us all feeling like we were going into summer. Only, if we rush summer, we miss out on the good cool-weather spring crops like peas. You like peas, right? Well then, feast your eyes on THIS:


I know, I know, it's not much to look at (especially since it's out of focus). That's a sugar snap pea juuust starting to peek out of the ground. That pea was planted on April 2nd, and the picture was taken April 12, so you can see they're taking their precious time in sprouting.

Now what I'm working really hard at this year is succession planting. That means I don't plant all my ______ (fill in the blank) seeds at one time, NOR to I fill in all the space designated for ______ (fill it in again) all at once. Instead I've planted a single row for each of the pea varieties, and gave LOTS of space between each row planted. Then I'll wait a few weeks, and plant another row next to the first. Wait a couple more weeks, and move over to the remaining space to plant the last of the peas. Peas don't like hot weather, so my plan is to hopefully go through three overlapping cycles of peas (of different varieties) to ensure a constant supply of sugar snap and snow peas. I don't deal with shelling peas - I'm not all that fond of them, and really, aren't they alot of work for how little you get out of them!? I know people say they're amazing fresh, but I say buy 'em in the freezer section!

And just so you know, I haven't been doing all this gardening alone... I've had help. Here's one of my garden helpers, overseeing my work.