Fruiting planting days through until Monday, and it is such perfect garden weather – such a contrast to last weekend – that you would think the garden gods are conspiring to get me planting peas instead of spinach! It is so calm and sunny that I am tempted to think about putting in some Spring seeds – some tomatoes and capsicum and chilis, some cucumbers and zucchini and squash and melons, some beans and potatoes and eggplants. I know that is a bit too foolish. We still have some cold weather to go yet. But I might just go through my seed box and stick some leftovers in a seed tray for fun. It’s on the jobs list for the next week or so anyhow – to go through my seed box and see what I need to order for Spring planting – so I might as well give some old seed a go.
But really, the garden job this week is to plant out the pea and snow pea seedlings and get the last of the pea seeds in. The ones I plant now will be bearing in October, which is really a bit late for them in this part of the world – it will be warming up so much by then that they will be very susceptible to powdery mildew. And in any case, I’ll be looking for all the climbing space I can get for the beans and cucumbers. So I won’t plant too many of them, just a few to try to eke out the last of the season, and I’ll choose resistant varieties and feed them lots of compost and seaweed brew to build up their resistance.
The mice early in the season got so many peas that for once I have enough trellis room left for planting out these late ones.
Mice got so many of our pea seeds too! I was out in the greenhouse just this morning and noticed our first pea flower..it lacks a lot of sun at this time of year but hopefully it will still get enough to throw a few pods our way, I think they were all snowpea/sugarsnaps.
Very tempting to think about planting warmer weather seeds with a sunny day or two! If you have some old seeds about, why not? I was thinking of doing the same..except not for another month due to being in a cold zone. 🙂
I shouldn’t think about it for another month either!
Our peas are growing well too – we’ve just got our first white flowers! I was given a variety called “Willow” which is supposed to be powdery mildew resistant, so fingers crossed they’ll work well this year.
I have had a lovely season with peas. I was wondering if there was any particular seed brands you rely on or perhaps you seed save? I always write down the seed type and brand if I haven’t saved any but I seem to get such mixed results. Do you ever buy in bulk? Perhaps not economic for just my family plot.
Hi Joy, this was my last year’s experience with my favourite variety of snow peas. This year I’m trying Oregon Giant, from Southern Harvest. It’s way out of my climate range, much further than I’d normally go, but it sounds a bit like the variety I lost. Celia is trying “Willow”, and I’m really looking forward to hearing how they go – it’s a new variety to me. I save a lot of my own seed, but I’m a sucker for a seed catalogue. Usually I go for Diggers or Eden Seeds. I also usually share seed of anything that works really well. If I lose the variety, it gives me a second chance at getting it back, and it gets returned, so I get gifts of little packets of seed from local gardening friends. Local is always best.
Linda all my beans and peas did terribly this year 🙁 I really don’t know where I went wrong, I had such an abundant crop last year… I have just sowed another crop too, with some hope, they are greenfeast pea and redland beans, both from Eden seeds. I hope yours do fabulously well 🙂
Ali.
Hi Alison, you’re in a similar climate to me I think. It’s a little early here for beans – I’m risking them this month too, but I don’t have high hopes. Greenfeast and redland have both been good varieties for me in the past. The most likely reason for trouble with both peas and beans is soil Ph – they both like soil that is a little on the alkali side of neutral, and Australian soils are probably more likely to be acid than alkali. Lots of animal manure or high nitrogen organic matter will make them even more so. This time of year all my woodash from the wood stove goes into the garden in areas where I’m planning to plant peas and beans. It’s a nice gently way to adjust the Ph up.
Hi Alison, you’re in a similar climate to me I think. It’s a little early here for beans – I’m risking them this month too, but I don’t have high hopes. Greenfeast and redland have both been good varieties for me in the past. The most likely reason for trouble with both peas and beans is soil Ph – they both like soil that is a little on the alkali side of neutral, and Australian soils are probably more likely to be acid than alkali. Lots of animal manure or high nitrogen organic matter will make them even more so. This time of year all my woodash from the wood stove goes into the garden in areas where I’m planning to plant peas and beans. It’s a nice gentle way to adjust the Ph up.
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