Fruits of My Labours
I've been eating home-grown strawberries and raspberries for quite a few weeks now - and, by the look of it, that will continue for some time (and the strawberry plants are putting out loads of runners, so I'll double, or treble the number of plants by next year).
I've already harvested several pounds of ripe tomatoes - and there are quite a few I ought to be picking later today (the photo is of the greenhouse tomatoes, but even my three outdoor plants now have quite a weight of [admittedly still green] fruits on them). I'm going to have to start making soups this week, I think, for I have too many to eat at mealtimes. Then perhaps some sauces, ketchup, and chutneys or other preserves. Hurrah!!
And look what I had with my dinner yesterday - my own petits pois. I only grew a few, as an experiment as I've never grown peas before. They weren't very successful, to be honest - only three plants came up on the first row (from about 8 seeds) and slugs killed one of them after a week. None at all germinated on the second sowing. Still, the two plants that did survive have come up trumps:
They were delicious - so sweet as I was eating them raw, straight from the pod, that it almost seemed a shame to cook them for dinner.
14 letters to the editor:
That`s a marvellous pea-pod - if they grow like that?!.
How did it fit together?!
One half sat on top of the other, and they joined down the seam, which I opened with my thumbnail for the phto.
The trouble with Petit Pois is that slugs Mange Tous.
I heard this on a Gardeners World Podcast
Yum! I can almost hear the popping pods from my little corner of Blogland...
Allow me to say 'thankyou' on behalf of the slug.
Another year, you may find you get better germination if you sow peas in the greenhouse and plant them out. If you can lay your hands on a length of guttering and sow into that, you can just slide the plants into a shallow trench in the soil.
I've read of that trick, Z, and for years I did keep a bit of old guttering, for the day when I'd grow peas - but it seems to have vanished in the last move.
I planted all my other seeds in the greenhouse, but hwen it came time to plant the peas there was no room left, so they had to go straight in the soil. Ah well, next year...
tasty!
(bit like you then. . .)
I had great success with my peas - the big, old fashion sort
perhaps you're not using the right variety for your soil, or something like that
(I'm not very knowledgable when it comes to petit pois)
I like tomato soup - will you be making the bread to go with it?
Sx
Could do.
Where will it end? Fruit and veg. stall in the local market? Dawn run to Covent Garden? Well doen, though - nothing tastes better than produce from your own garden.
It still doesn`t look to me as if they`re both halves of the same pod??
It's the way he's split the pod, Ivy - usually, one opens the side away from the seam where the peas join the pod as that opens more naturally. And one of the peas at the back has rolled from its place in the middle of the pod. The angle of the photo is making the forward half of the pod look shorter than the other.
Time on my hands you see, Dave - I have whiled it away studying a photo of a pea pod. Just as well I didn't get up at dawn.
You are quite right z, even down to the loose pea.
Post a Comment