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Growing peas.

A friend looked around my garden the other day and asked me if I went to bed dreaming about peas – well no, but I do like them and I suppose I have planted quite a few.

I have planted them before and haven’t had any disasters with them.

As for peas, well I find them easy to grow. I have found all brands to be fine regardless of price and I’ve also had some great success growing peas from a Bachelors Marrowfat Pea box – they grew into beautifully sweet marrowfat peas.

That’s why I think it’s always worth experimenting in the garden – you never know what happens and it hasn’t cost you a whole lot if your seeds don’t grow.

The area below is the newest area to be uncovered in the wilderness garden. This is a continuation of the patio slope and leads from the patio through a gate to the back of the house and the raised bed area.

I chose it for peas because it is sunny and sheltered. This area is used just as a pathway that leads to the raised beds – so it would otherwise go to waste.

growing peas image of weedy areaBefore weeding.

growing peasAfter weeding

growing peasPea support

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t too weedy so I managed to clear it in an afternoon from my chair.

The bank above it is literally overgrown with hay and grass so we covered it with weed cover to kill the growth and prepare for next year when we hope to plant trees as well as peas.

Why so many peas? Well, you can never, ever have too many peas for a start and I honestly don’t feel it’s excessive.

You have to allow for a lot of peas to go missing between harvest and home because they are really tasty when both raw and fresh, and a lot of them seem to fall on the ground and bounce into your mouth on the way to the kitchen.

But the main reason is that what seems to be a lot isn’t all that much by the time you shell them, pop them and round them up.

Peas are easy to freeze, easy to cook and as well as being a nice side dish you can mix them in with rice and make my favourite – rice and peas.

You can throw them in soups, casseroles etc.  If anyone’s got any tasty easy recipes – please feel free to post in the comments but the emphasis is on easy – I don’t like cooking.

PEAS FOR SMALL CHILDREN

peas in a raised bed with an article about growing peasSome people say growing peas is too much hassle because you have to pod them but I say that’s what small children are for.

If you don’t have any handy you can always borrow them from your exhausted friends – just promise to return their kids tired and ready for sleep.

If you really can’t lay your hands on some small children then you can simply plonk down in front of the telly and mindlessly pod the peas while watching your favourite show.

I find peas work best with thrillers – you can add your own sound effects!

DOWN WITH SMUG

If you find yourself eating them as you pod, well so what? Better than snacking on biccies, crisps, and my beloved Maltesers, and other stuff that doesn’t grow in the garden.

In fact, if all our snacking consisted of stuff we grew ourselves we’d be in amazingly great health and I’m sure we wouldn’t miss the above-mentioned biccies, crisps, Maltesers, and other stuff!

Before you run away I’m only joking  – you haven’t found yourself on one of those ‘never eat anything that comes from a packet’ blogs written by simpering Sally Smug and her horrible husband, Steve Smug.

You know the blogs I mean, there are millions of them, and they all come with smug mug shots of a gruesome twosome smirking in their pristine house.

PEAS AND MALTESERS

No, none of that here, I like growing peas and I would love to grow Maltesers I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet but when I do, I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime more about my other vegetables here. 

There’s more about growing peas in raised beds here.

Happy gardening.

 

Grace


BALLYYAHOO 

ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILDREN TO LOVE NATURE

MAGGIE MANY CATS

Book cover of Maggie Many Cats and Other Stories by Grace Jolliffe illustrating a page about growing peas

As well as gardening I love to write – I used to write for Ireland’s RTE 1 children’s radio stories and still love writing for children.

My Ballyyahoo children’s books are my favourite personal project.

My aim is to share my love of nature with children.

Each book in the series is linked to the Ballyyahoo website with additional information and nature photographs.

There’s so much to love about nature –  best of all it’s free!

Get Maggie Many Cats the eBook from:

Amazon.com here

Amazon.co.uk here


WANDER AROUND BALLYYAHOO, READ STORIES AND DISCOVER NATURE 

imaginary town in Ballyyahoo - illustrating an article about growing peas

 

 

 

 

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