The snow peas are up – barely. But they are up!

They were seeded in the cold ground on March 27 – so that’s about 2 and a half weeks they needed to germinate. Not bad for a cold, slow spring. As soon as the plants are a bit bigger, we’ll seed the next batch. By then the weather will be warmer so they will sprout much quicker. If we seeded them already, they would catch up to the first ones & we would likely be picking both plantings of snow peas at the same time. We don’t want that!

Truth be told, we don’t enjoy picking snow peas at all!  While it is great to get something in the ground early (snow peas are always the first seeds to be planted) and great to watch them grow, they are certainly no fun to pick! The pea pods are green – the exact same green colour as the plants, which makes them extremely difficult to see, and picking slow & tedious.

We plant our peas in wide rows. This way the tall plants support each other and stay fairly vertical, keeping the peas clean. Single rows would flop over and the peas would get dirty. We would also have to plant soooo many rows to harvest the same amount of peas. It would take an awful lot of space and require an awful lot of extra weeding. But they would be slightly easier to pick.

(obviously the above 2 pictures are from previous years!)

Most years we do 3 plantings of snow peas (each planting is 200′) which stretches the harvest season out for a few weeks. This year we debated about planting them at all. None of us would miss the picking – but our CSA members & market customers sure would miss the peas! And so we compromised and decided to plant just once. Enough for our CSA boxes for 1 week or maybe 2, and that’s it.

As it turns out we have enough seeds left for a 2nd planting – a sensible & easy decision to make now. But the real work and the grumbling will start along with the harvest later this spring!

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Other things growing & showing right now …

The rhubarb is showing the most growth …

and the garlic too …

Our garlic is always slow to appear because of the thick layer of straw on top which doesn’t allow the soil to warm up early. This straw will is to keep the weeds from taking over and makes garlic a work-free crop until harvest in July.

But where the straw is a little thin and along the edges of the patch, the weeds are already making an appearance.

After a cold & wet weekend it was a pleasure to see the sun & blue sky this afternoon.

The blackberries in the foreground here have been pruned and are ready for tying. Their buds are swelling and the first green can be seen. The blackberries canes seem to have come through the winter well, looking alive & healthy. We’re pretty excited about that – blackberries are never a sure thing being sensitive to cold winter winds and sub-zero temperatures. But they are an important crop for us.

They are also showing very little rodent damage this spring. Possibly these guys actually did their jobs??