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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Breakin' Ground

 Well, I couldn’t hold back any longer. For the first time this year I broke ground in my vegetable garden and planted some sugar snap peas. The recent explosion of warm weather this past weekend brought on the garden fever. I just had to get out and plant something! I’m sure there's more cool weather to be had before spring sets in but sugar snap peas enjoy the cool weather growing conditions and can be planted as soon as it’s warm enough to work the soil - usually late winter to early spring (depending on your area).

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Oregon Sugar Pod II (Burpee)

I planted the peas in a 4 x 10 foot raised garden bed I recently made. In the raised bed I added a layer of crushed leaves and manure (chicken and rabbit) on the bottom, and top soil mixed with compost makes up the top layer. I haven’t always used raised beds but as I get older I find them much easier to manage, and it keeps me from planting too much as I like to do sometimes - working myself silly trying to keep everything picked. Raised beds also offer many other advantages like better drainage, reduced soil compaction and soil conditions can be controlled more efficiently in a raised bed.

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I built a trellis for the peas to climb up out of 2 x 2 inch post and reinforced wire panels. The wire panels come in 6 foot lengths by 4 feet high. I ended up using 1-1/2 panels. I connected the wire to the 2 x 2’s using plastic tie wraps. I'm going to use the rest of the bed to plant broccoli and my current plan is to reuse the trellis for my cucumbers once the peas are done.

 

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6 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh you are such a neat gardener! We have sweet peas peeking out of the soil and a few onions.

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

Looks good Alan. I am thinking raised beds are the way to go.

Anonymous said...

Raised beds are great! That dirt looks pretty rich and good for growing. Trellis looks sharp too.

Gardeness said...

Nice trellis. I'm planning on using PVC pipe, and perhaps jute string we still have hanging around.

Chandramouli S said...

How neat, as Darla pointed out. Pisum Sativum! I love their cute little white blooms. Good luck, Alan.

Dawn Fine said...

ok andy...you sure your not jumping the gun with that warm weather?
watch out for late frost.