Reflections – Against All Pea Planting Odds

Peas Planted and Covered

Call me crazy.

After twenty-five years of disappointing harvests, I wanted to plant peas despite worse odds than those for playing roulette in Las Vegas.

In the past, April snows slowed germination. Cold wet soil rotted seeds. Birds pulled sprouts to gobble the pea seeds below. Groundhogs, deer, and bunnies nibbled seedlings down to the dirt. Weeds crowded seedlings. And late spring heat waves burned delicate plants before peas matured.

Hoping this year would be different, I strapped on knee pads, pulled on garden gloves, and grabbed my favorite wide-blade trowel. My mouth watered as I imagined the earthy-sweet flavor that only picked-and-popped-into-the-mouth homegrown peas can offer. I hustled to the south garden.

Spence—my husband, enabler, and mentor—had enclosed it with double fencing. He’d strung three feet of chicken wire at the bottom and four feet of deer netting on top. Rather than construct a gate, he left a section beyond the kiwi trellis without deer netting for agile entry.

Like a dog preparing for the other kind of pee, I lifted my leg over. With the temperature a balmy 64° F (18° C) in the shade, the sun-toasted garden felt like summer.

Spence, wearing a relieved smile, waited for me.

Since St. Patrick’s Day, the time when our fathers had planted peas, I’d repeatedly asked, “Is it time to plant peas?” He always answered with a calm “not yet” and the scientific data of soil temperature. The temperatures had started at 33° F (0.5° C). Peas, though a cold weather crop, need a 50° F (10° C) soil temperature to germinate. The soil reached that temperature on Wednesday, April 8, pea planting day.

Spence pulled up the black landscape cloth which kept weeds down and warmed the soil.

Pale, spindly thistles scattered over the dark brown soil Spence had exposed. “The first job is—”

“I know.” I dropped onto my knees. “Weed.” Pushing the trowel into the soil jolted my hand. I’d expected the soft soil Spence had put in the new raised bed for transplanting strawberries in March. The garden’s clay soil was hard packed. “Do we have a dandelion digger?” I groaned and muscled the trowel an inch deeper.

Spence rummaged through the tool bucket. “I’ll check in the house.”

“Get me a hat while you’re there. I didn’t realize I’d need a garden hat in April.”

He took off his muddy baseball cap, set it on my head, and left.

I levered the trowel upward. A clump of dirt, the shape of a short carrot with a top five times wider than the bottom, shot out of the ground and landed an arm’s stretch away. Giggling, I pulled the thistle with its curly, white root off and tossed it into a bucket to wither. I looked at the clump. Would delicate pea roots have as much trouble spreading in that as I had digging? Frowning, I whacked the dirt with the side of the trowel. The clump broke into rich topsoil which I spread over the garden with the trowel blade. Pleased with myself, I forced the trowel in beside the next thistle.

Spence returned with a narrow, sharp-edged trowel and a clean hat. He put the hat on his head. “I couldn’t find the dandelion digger. This might do.” Kneeling beside me, he glanced at my whacked-smooth soil. “Try not to break up the soil.” Spence stuck the narrow trowel into the hard pack and lifted. A clump of soil popped out. “Oh. I see the problem.” He handed the trowel to me. “Do the best you can.”

Spence had a point. Breaking the soil, like tilling, would encourage weeds. Pea roots would have to find a way. I dug in and flipped out a clump with the thistle. No worries. After dispatching the weed, I slid the clump back into the ground like a 3-D puzzle.

Deer Creek babbled in the valley. A crow cawed in the woods.

Spence rummaged in the tool bucket again. “We need a dibble.”

“A what?”

“I’ll make you one.” Rummaging in his tool bucket yet again, he selected three half foot sections of PVC pipes, his version of Tinkertoys, and fitted them into a three way connector. He handed the plastic T-shaped contraption to me. “Use this.”

I studied it from the cross-top to the hollow stick bottom. “How?”

Taking the tool out of my hands, he placed the bottom on the ground, pushed down with a hand on either side of the top piece, and lifted a plug of soil out. “See? Make holes two inches apart. And make two rows.”

Janet Making Holes with Dibble

“Should the rows be two inches apart?”

Horror flashed across his face. He reached into his back pocket, whipped out a tape measure, and lay it under the neon green string he’d strung down the middle of the sixty foot pea patch. “Make each row six inches from the string.”

Following directions is my strength. I pushed with both hands. “Yikes.” The hard soil made the task a muscle building exercise.

Spence grabbed the tool, disappeared into the basement, and hustled back. “I sharpened the end. See how that works.”

Better. I could force it in without stepping on the top like mounting the pedals of a pogo stick.

He drifted away.

I dibbled holes across a five foot section then dropped a water-soaked Green Arrow pea seed into each. Though the softened peas would germinate faster than hard seeds, the wet balls slipped out of my hand and rolled away. I scooped them up in my soiled garden gloves and dropped the muddy spheres into the holes. A little extra dirt wouldn’t hurt.

When I reached for my fat trowel to scrape dirt into the holes, Spence set down the bushel basket with the dregs of the last compost harvest our worm factory produced. He grabbed a handful of compost and sprinkled it over a seed in one of the holes. “Don’t use the soil. Fill the holes with compost. Use potting soil when that runs out.”

A phoebe sang fee-bee. Deer Creek babbled in the valley. Wind chimes clanged on the porch.

Side by side for our septuagenarian date, we dibbled, dropped, and covered. No need for conversation with nature’s concert in the background.

Janet Covering Seeds

Spence watered, I spread straw, and we covered the patch with three of Spence’s homemade cloches—triangular tents made from PVC pipes and heavy, transparent plastic. He blocked the open ends of the cloches with straw. 

We surveyed our work and grinned at each other.

“Oh!” Spence grabbed my clean baseball cap off his head. “I forgot to give you your hat.”

Putting my arm around his waist, I steered him toward the section of fence without the deer netting. “Your hat worked fine.”

Sun glittered off the plastic cloche.

As we walked back to the house, I wondered if we’d done enough to even the odds.

We waited till the soil warmed and drained.

Birds couldn’t see the sprouts under the cloche and straw.

The chicken wire and deer netting would frustrate groundhogs, deer, and bunnies.

We weeded and covered bare soil with straw.

With the cloche heating the soil and protecting the seedlings from April snows, we got the peas in early to give them time to mature before the oppressive, late spring heat.

Since April 8, we had four, cold, windy days with snow accumulations that varied from a half inch to four inches. The soil temperature under the cloche and straw dipped to 37° F (3° C). Would the seeds rot before the soil warms next week? The chips, rather peas, were down, but I had a green ace up my sleeve. Spence. 

Yesterday, he lifted the cloche off the middle of the pea row and eased away the straw. Quarter inch green sprouts peeked out of the soil. And Spence bought a bag of Wando pea seeds to plant next.

Crazy, for trying again after twenty-five years of disappointing harvests? I prefer to think of myself as hopeful.

Spence Pointing to Pea Sprouts