First Peas!

We picked our first peas last week.  Okay, so it was only a handful, but it made us smile!

Peas are such an all around fun plant for our garden.  The seeds are big and easy for little hands to grasp.  You can start a bunch indoors with just a little water and some paper towels, and they sprout really quickly which the kids love.  And my kids can’t get enough of them once they are ready to pick and eat.  And I love hanging out in the garden with them while they pick yummy crunchy vegetables and enjoy eating them.  I think this is why I am forever spoiled over a delicious garden tomato, because my dad always grew tomatoes in the garden and we got to pick them right from the vine and eat them; there’s just no comparison!

Getting a bit of a late start ourselves this year, Lily and I started two different kinds of peas from Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, Sugar Ann and Cascadia.

Once they were an inch or so high…

Lily helped me plant them in the garden and water them.  Actually, this year, she pretty much did it all by herself.

Usually we make pea tepees, another aspect of peas that delights Lily and Jasper.

And this year we also just planted the Sugar Ann in the raised bed without support according to the Uprising Seeds Guide.   I wasn’t sure at first, and they are sort of gangly and hanging all over each other, but they are flourishing and giving us peas already.  Yeah Peas!

In May we planted some directly in the soil because I decided, if we are going to have another spring/summer like 2011, which was cold and rainy and cold and rainy through July, we could have peas all summer long.  Here is a pic of Lily taking care of our latest set of pea seeds.

I would like to show you the better photos, the close-ups of her actually planting them in the tiny holes she makes with her tiny fingers, but the amount of snot coming out of her nose would scare you.  I really need to brush up on my photo editing skills!  That is definitely one ongoing adventure we have in the garden, how to get good photos of the kids' faces, minus snot.  How 'bout you?  Any gardening adventures to share?

As much as I love peas, I’d really really rather have some sunshine and higher temperatures and enjoy a few other crops as well.  A good mix of peas and sunshine would be fabulous! But for now, let them eat peas!!