Fruiting Planting in Mid Autumn – Peas, Snow Peas and Broad Beans

Today it’s wet and cold.  All of  a sudden the weather has changed and you can really feel the winter in the air.  I guess it’s only a week and a half now until the southern hemisphere Halloween, which marks the last of the traditional autumn harvest festivals and the start the season of reflecting and remembering.

The solar hot water system wasn’t up to the job of creating a hot shower to come in to from a wet and muddy garden today, so I lit the slow combustion stove this morning.  I have had the bread proving on the shelf above it and yoghurt in the warming oven all day, and now a tray of vegetables roasting in the oven.  My son has been visiting and I waved him off with a “care package” of garden produce this morning, and we had friends visit and I made a garden salad for lunch.  Just enough time this afternoon to plant the fruiting annual seeds in trays in the shadehouse.

I’ve planted a tray of Telephone peas, one of Oregon Dwarf Snow Peas, one of Diggers Climbing Snow Peas, and one of Aquadulce Broad Beans.  The Aquadulce were chosen because they are an early variety, and this far north our broad bean season is short.  The Oregon Dwarf are not really a dwarf – up to 1.5 metres tall according to the packet.  I choose climbing varieties these days to make double use of my fortress fencing, but these are supposed to be mildew resistant, and I am hoping they are the variety that I lost year before last. Someone commented on that post that Oregon Dwarf had done really well for them in Melbourne.  The Diggers are insurance – a tall climbing snow pea – because we like snow peas!

I have planted them in paper pots, (or tubes really)  in a mixture of compost, creek sand and ash.  I add quite a lot of wood ash to the mix for peas and beans – about two-thirds of a bucket for these four trays of mix.  Peas and beans like a more alkali soil and ash helps bring the Ph up.  I shall dig in a bit more ash when I plant them out in about a month’s time. For now all the fence-trellises are occupied with beans and cucumbers.

Ah Sunday!