We used to try to grow spring peas ever year. There might have been once or twice that we actually grew enough to harvest.

Some years we waited too late to plant, other years the weather just didn’t cooperate. Often by the time the peas started growing we needed to pull them up to plant beans in their place.

Finally Matt said lets forget the early peas and just enjoy summer peas.

For the last several years we’ve enjoyed growing the holstein pea. Debbie Hooper from Bryson Farm Supply shared the seed with us. It’s named appropriately since it is black and white. The taste is similar to a black eyed pea.

One year we fell in love with the Mississippi pink eye bush variety of pea and we’ve been growing it ever since.

We’ve grown an old variety called calico from a friend in Alabama and really enjoyed it too.

Calico and Mississippi pink eye are the only peas we planted this year.

In my Nature Studies class last week Ila shared something she had just learned about growing those early spring peas.

While visiting Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello Ila learned they plant their spring peas in November. The ground is too cold for them to sprout. The seed lays in the cold ground all through the winter and then when the soil warms to the right temperature they come up and grow.

Ila plans to see if the method works for her this fall. Matt and I are going to try it too. We’ll only plant a short little row but it will be fun to see if the peas do better than they have for us in the past.

I’ve always been amazed with the vigor and production of volunteer plants in the garden. They almost always do better than the ones we painstakingly plant just right. I’ve often teased Matt that we might should plant our whole garden in December and see how it does. The method of planting in November is a good test for my teasing theory.

Last night’s video: Memory of Cornbread by Willow Lawson.

Tipper

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