Fruiting Planting in Early Winter

All this long weekend is fruiting planting days, and all I have ready to go in are these few.

I have finally worked out a way to keep the seedlings from the very intrepid mice that were getting all of them before they germinated. But it is drastic measures!  I keep the pots in the Weber, try to remember to put the lid on at night and bring it inside, try to remember to take the lid off and wheel it out where it can get a bit of light before I go to work in the morning.  I’ve failed in the remembering bit a couple of times, and come out in the morning to find they are all gone.  If you are hearing echoes of very bad language, I think even the blue cables must be blushing!

I try to remember the permaculture principle that a glut of anything is a feast for something, but I don’t really know that I want the population explosion in snakes that would logically follow this mouse plague.  I am trying to keep my imagination focussed on lovely storybook owls feasting!

But meanwhile, this weekend I’ll be planting out these few Oregon Giant climbing snow pea seedlings, swearing all the while about how the mice have forced me to plant them all in one pot and raise them too big, rather than use my usual method. The roots will be unavoidably damaged in separating them for transplant but hopefully they’ll recover.  The variety is supposed to be very resistant to powdery mildew, and in this wet year, and this (relatively) warm climate, that’s important.  I shall dig in the wood ash from the stove before I plant – peas like a more alkali soil and wood ash is a nice way to drop the Ph.

I’ll also plant some more pots of climbing peas and snow peas to keep the succession going.  I’m harvesting the last of my green beans now, and looking forward to the start of the pea season.