Posts Tagged Sugar Sprint Snap Peas
Our Garden Grows
Posted by piedmontgardener in piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on May 3, 2020
Cool weather in my part of central North Carolina has been uncharacteristically prolonged this spring. Blooms on our native deciduous azaleas and magnolias have lasted weeks instead of days, as did the spring ephemeral wildflowers like bloodroot. The spring vegetable garden has also benefitted from the cool weather. I do mean cool. Just last week, our morning low dipped down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit, and low-to-mid 40s have frequently occurred.
Sugar Sprint snap peas. The first few picked yesterday topped our homegrown salad last night.
Consequently, the summer vegetables I started from seeds at the usual time — mid-March — have been impatiently growing taller within my greenhouse for quite some time. I tried to wait until nighttime lows looked like they would remain in the 50-degree range, but this past week I finally had to plant my summer vegetable/herb/flower charges before I could promise them fully settled weather. They are in no danger of being killed by a freeze — I’m 99% certain of that — but I’ve read of studies that show fruit production of tomatoes is reduced for the lifetime of the plant if they are exposed to temperatures below 50 degrees. However, I’m fortunate; fewer tomatoes won’t impact my household one way or the other; keeping towering tomatoes in the greenhouse, on the other hand, could have risked our entire crop.
As I planted out the summer vegetables, herbs, and flowers this past week, I pondered why it is I feel compelled to do this every year. I have decided the drive lurks within my DNA. Almost all my ancestors on both sides arrived in North America before the United States was born; most clear-cut forest and planted crops for food and profit. Their lives revolved around seasonal cycles, plant productivity, and insect and warm-blooded varmints trying to eat their livelihoods.
I grew these chives from seed many years ago. They continue with enthusiasm.
As I dig planting holes in beds I’ve been enriching with compost for three decades, I feel the hands of my grandmothers and grandfathers guiding mine. Food-growing is my connection to my lineage and to the land that shares its bounty with me. The sweat and sore muscles I accrue in the process seem a fair trade for what I am given in return.
I took all these photos yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon, I finally transplanted the last few flowers I’d started in the greenhouse. Except for sweet potato slips, which don’t arrive or get planted until the end of May, the vegetable garden is planted.
Our Spring Vegetable Garden
I don’t grow carrots anymore. I never thin them adequately, and most years temperatures get too hot for them before they make much progress. Fortunately, many local organic farmers sell theirs at local markets, so we are always well-supplied. I hadn’t tried peas for years for the same reason, but something told me this year would be different. I started the peas in the greenhouse, because seed germination in cold, wet soil can be unpredictable. As soon as the pea sprouts had two sets of leaves, I transplanted them beside their trellis in the garden. Thanks to the cool spring, I see an excellent pea crop in our future — maybe even enough to freeze some for winter soups!
Sugar Sprint peas
Wonder Spouse and I love beets. I grow two varieties — Red Ace and Detroit Red. Both make delicious greens that I’ve been popping into our salads for some time. Meanwhile, their delicious bulbs grow fatter in the cool spring weather. I only grew one lettuce variety, because it is so easy to buy organic lettuce from local farmers in my area. The variety I tried this year is New Red Fire; it is wonderfully tasty. Our unfinished basement makes a great root cellar, so we grow onions and potatoes that we store after harvest. Wonder Spouse likes mild, sweet Red Candy onions; I grow them from small bundled plant starts. Mr. Potato Head (aka Wonder Spouse) grows his potatoes in five large grow bags to thwart destructive voles. I know he’s growing two varieties this year, but I don’t remember the names at the moment.
Our Summer Vegetable Garden
I always plant a few basils around the edges of the tomato trellis to encourage pollinator visits.
This season I exhibited great self-control and only grew/planted three tomato varieties. Sweet Treats will always be our cherry tomato of choice. Picus has become our favorite plum/paste tomato. This year’s experiment with a medium slicing tomato is Rugged Boy. Only Sweet Treats is indeterminate, meaning it keeps growing longer all season. In theory, the other two determinate tomatoes should stop growing taller about mid-season and focus entirely on fruit production. I’ve noticed, however, that in my garden sometimes the determinate tomatoes forget themselves and grow nearly as much as the indeterminate forms. I tie them to either side of a 7-foot-tall trellis. By the end of the season, Wonder Spouse uses a stool to reach the fruits growing beyond my reach (even with the stool).
Peppers are a sweet Italian form, a variant of the traditional Bull’s Horn type that produces fruit half the size of their ancestor — a good thing for us — Bull’s Horn peppers are quite large. We grow a red one (Cornito Rosso) and a yellow one (Cornito Giallo). Because of their high vitamin C content, peppers freeze very well. Their colorful zing adds zip to Wonder Spouse’s culinary masterpieces all winter long.
I’ve had multiple years of success with a Japanese eggplant variety called Millionaire. It has shrugged off flea beetle damage and heat waves to remain productive until hard frost. We have become addicted to having a steady-but-not-overwhelming supply of these fruits all summer long.
I always grow a couple of zucchini plants I start from seed in the greenhouse. When I transplant them out, I cover them in a Reemay tent until they begin to bloom, so they can grow vigorous before I must expose them to the bug varmints of summer. I wrote about my method in detail long ago here. We like a variety called Raven. Its rich, dark fruits contain much antioxidant goodness and excellent flavor.
A recently emerged Fortex bean seedling
Because soil temperatures remained cold for so long, I only sowed my summer beans a week ago. After a recent copious rain, seedlings are emerging. Our pole bean of choice is Fortex; no other comes close for flavor and productivity. We love Jade bush beans for the same reason. I’ve taken to growing both on a trellis, allotting half to each variety. I find it is much easier to keep the bush beans upright and productive when I can lean or attach them to a trellis.
I’ve grown borage (Borago officinalis), an annual herb, off and on for years. I love the vivid blue of its flowers, and it is a pollinator magnet. I’ve never used it for its purported medicinal properties, but in researching it today, I learned that “the flowers, candied and made into a conserve, were deemed useful for persons weakened by long sickness.” Perhaps more of us should be growing borage this year to aid those recovering from world-wide sickness.
Borage flower buds
First Fruits of Summer
Posted by piedmontgardener in Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on May 25, 2012
Two Raven Zucchinis, Three Spineless Perfection Zucchinis, and Two Y-Star Patty Pans
Yes, it’s that time, folks, when squash shows up nightly on the dinner menu, and the aroma of baking zucchini bread fills the house with cinnamon-squash goodness. With today’s harvest, summer produce is officially in the house.
Wonder Spouse and I have been working hard to get the vegetable garden weeded and mulched for the season, and we’re nearly done, I’m happy to report. That’s good, because as you can see above, the summer vegetables are cranking bigtime.
And well they should be. Our high temperatures are mostly hovering in the mid to upper 80s, with nighttime lows in the middle to upper 60s. Combined with heavy, humid air and occasional thunderstorm rain, these are close to ideal growing conditions for the summer garden. We did get a bit of pea-sized hail the other afternoon, but it wasn’t heavy enough to do any harm that I could see. Compared to areas near me, I’m still low on rainfall, so I am providing extra water to the squashes (big moisture consumers) and the last of the spring veggies still struggling to hang on.
Here’s a shot of the Rainbow Chard, which is all that’s left of my lovely bed of greens. The lettuces and spinaches all bolted for the sky when the 80-degree temperatures settled in.
Rainbow Chard is still productive
After I took this picture, I harvested almost all of the big leaves you see here. I’ve never grown this veggie before, and I’m not sure how much longer it can withstand summer weather, so I figured I’d pick as much as I could while it still tastes good.
I haven’t pulled up the Sugar Sprint Snap Peas yet, but their productivity has slowed to a crawl. If I stop seeing any flowers, I’ll compost them. The beets still seem to be growing well. I’m trying to keep them moist, in the hopes that the beet roots will expand a bit more before I must harvest them.
Beets and carrots in front, rainbow chard in back, and a basil in the middle
The tomatoes are all taller than me now; their fruits grow larger — and more numerous — daily. I find I must tie new growth to the trellises every other day. My tomato experiment this year is a new variety called Indigo Rose. The amount of purple pigment produced in the fruit depends entirely on how much sun reaches the fruit. Here’s one plant that gets a lot of sun:
Note how the fruits are mostly purple
Compare that picture with a shot of another plant of the same variety that is sited where it gets more shade:
Only the very tops of the fruits of this shaded Indigo Rose are turning purple.
Whatever degree of purple these fruits attain, I think they’ll look amazing in salads. I sure hope they taste good.
Meanwhile the Fortex Pole Beans have already shot over the top of their 6-foot trellis. Last year, these beans grew up and over the trellis, and then some of the vines started back up again. Given how early we are in the season, I’m thinking this year’s beans may overwrap the trellis multiple times. This makes for very challenging bean-harvesting conditions, because it’s hard to spot the beans hiding deep within the mass of foliage. A taller trellis wouldn’t solve my problem; I can barely reach the top of this one.
You can just about hear them shouting, “To infinity and beyond!”
The Jade Bush Beans were slow to get going, but are now starting to look fairly respectable. We love the flavor of these beans, which is why I still grow them, despite the complaints my knees make when I’m harvesting them.
Jade Bush Beans in foreground, squashes behind
And, as you can see from the first shot of this entry, all three squash varieties are producing with almost frightening enthusiasm.
Y-Star Patty Pan Squash
Raven Zucchinis have darker skin than most other varieties, including:
Spineless Perfection Zucchini — it does seem less prickly
That concludes this vegetable garden update, but I want to close with two more photos I took this morning.
First up is this young cottontail rabbit that was dining on clover growing in my driveway. Apologies for the blurriness, but the bunny was wiggly. Note the dark spots on its ears. Those are ticks, which is not only gross, but also explains why my front flower garden is so full of ticks that I can’t walk through it without picking up several. Yikes!
Young bunny with tick-infested ears
And I’ll close on a more aesthetic note. I grew this yarrow from seed years ago, and because, like most yarrows, it tends to spread itself around, its pretty pink flowers still adorn the edge of my vegetable garden every year. The nice thing about yarrow is that you can hack it back as much as you need without ever killing it.
Pink yarrow — tough and pretty
As Memorial Day weekend begins, I hope all my readers will be enjoying their yards and gardens as much as I am enjoying mine. Happy Summer, everyone.
Vegetable garden charges toward summer
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on May 11, 2012
Foxgloves and yarrows invite pollinators to visit.
Last week, my garden sweltered beneath high temperatures in the nineties. This week, the temperatures plunged 25 degrees. This morning, our hill thermometer registered a low of 41 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, it’s a typical late spring in the Piedmont of North Carolina.
Experience has taught me that the trick to helping veggies survive spring’s wild weather swings is to plant vigorous plants during a settled spell of weather, mulch them heavily immediately, and water as often as necessary to keep the soil evenly moist.
This year, my timing seems to have been pretty good. The spring veggies are still producing, although last week’s nineties caused some of the mesclun mix (Yankee greens, as I think of them) to bolt.
And the Sugar Sprint Snap Peas have been disappointing. It took them much longer to begin to bloom than the Sugar Anns I’ve grown in the past, and the pods started filling very unevenly when the heat hit them last week. The Sugar Anns never faded this fast. That’s not to say the Sugar Sprints aren’t still producing, just not producing up to my expectations. Here’s what they looked like yesterday morning after a piddly rain the day before:
Sugar Anns will replace these Sugar Sprints next year.
As for that rain I mentioned, as usual, my little corner of the Piedmont is being overlooked. The city 30 miles to our east has had two major, multi-inch rain events in the last two weeks. Our two-week total isn’t even 1.5 inches. Of course, the folks in Raleigh also got hail, some flooding, and a few houses were set on fire by lightning. I’ll take gentle, light rain over dangerous storms every time, of course, but I get grumbly when I hear the TV weather folk talking about the “break in the drought.” Not at my house.
Wonder Spouse and I are still enjoying the bed of spring greens, and we do have enough peas to at least add a few to our salads. Here’s what that bed looked like yesterday morning:
Still sweet, tender, and delicious
And the beets are finally looking like they might make some actual beets. If the sub-80-degree weather sticks around and we can get some decent rain, I think I still have a good chance at a decent beet crop. Here they are with the bolting mesclun mix in the background:
The pink flower is a cosmos.
The 90-degree heat was a huge boost to the summer garden. A number of the tomato plants are already as tall as I am, and fruit production is enthusiastic. The peppers are not far behind, and the beans — especially the pole beans — are reaching for the sky. Here’s what the pole beans looked like yesterday morning:
These Fortex pole beans seem even more vigorous than last year’s crop — yikes!
And check out these tomato fruits:
Sweet Treats Cherry Tomato
Viva Italia paste tomato
Early Goliath Slicer Tomato
Indigo Rose Tomato
Check out the way the Indigo Rose tomatoes are already turning purple. I did a bit of research on these and learned that they only make anthocyanins (the purple-colored antioxidant) where the sun touches the skin, and the purple stays only in the top layers of the tomato. So this is one you’ll want to eat skin and all if you’re trying to take advantage of this nutrient. I also learned that the tomato is fully ripe when the bottom of the tomato is deep red. I’ll keep you apprised of their progress.
Last but not least, two of my six squash plants had open flowers yesterday, so I was forced to remove their coverings so that pollinators could access the flowers. The plants look strong, and I’m hoping they’ll be able to resist the squash varmints long enough for us to grow weary of squash-filled dinners.
Y-Star Patty Pan Squash — a new variety for me this year
As you might guess, our yard is still producing many blooming plants. I’ll show you some highlights soon, along with some wildlife updates.
Now it’s time to pull more weeds, mulch, and continuously pray for gentle, abundant rain.
Sweat Equity in the Vegetable Garden
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on April 30, 2012
Rainbow Chard lives up to its name
In case any of you handful of folks who actually read my blog on purpose were wondering why I haven’t posted in a week, this entry is my explanation. With the invaluable aid of the Wonder Spouse, I’ve been working hard to get all the summer vegetables situated in the garden. I’m happy to report that I’m nearly done. A half dozen Queen Sophia marigolds and a couple of nasturtiums still need to be tucked in somewhere, but everything else is planted, watered, and mulched. And, in the case of the tomato plants, they’re also tied to their trellises.
I’ll show you shortly, but first I want to spend a bit of space on the wonderful spring vegetable garden that is still growing strong — for now. The weather seers are predicting temperatures in the 90s and no good chances for rain for the rest of the week, so I’m not sure they’ll be looking this lovely by next weekend. Thus, a brief photo tour is in order.
Here’s the bed of greens — lettuces, spinaches, and the astonishing rainbow chard dwell happily together:
- They taste even better than they look.
The absolute hit of the salad greens has been the Red Cross lettuce. This buttercrunch type is so tender that chewing is almost optional. And it’s gorgeous, as you can see here:
Red Cross lettuce -- a salad star is born!
Not all the spring vegetables have been as cooperative as those shown above. The beets were slow to get going, although they are finally starting to look like they might become productive in a few weeks — if the heat backs off.
Red Ace beets in foreground; mesclun mix in back
Carrot germination was almost nonexistent for me this year. I blame the absurdly warm, dry spring. I think I’m nursing about a half dozen tiny carrot plants mixed in with the beets.
The Sugar Sprint Snap peas took way longer to start blooming than I expected. However, now they are blooming bigtime, and I can see numerous small pea pods dangling from the vines. I watered them thoroughly again this morning in an effort to push them to harvestable size before the heat melts them.
Lots of flowers on my row of Sugar Sprint Snap Peas
Will the pods reach harvestable size before the heat destroys them?
And here’s a view of the quarter of my vegetable area dedicated (mostly) to spring veggies this year:
Peas in the foreground; greens behind
In addition to harvesting, watering, and encouraging the peas to plump up faster, I’ve been busy in two of the other quadrants. First I sowed Fortex Pole Beans and Jade Bush Beans, both varieties that have worked well for me before. Amongst the Fortex seeds, I sowed seeds of a climbing nasturtium that is supposed to produce flowers in vibrant shades of orange and red. I’m hoping they’ll look spectacular mingled with the vigorous green bean vines. Almost every seed I sowed sprouted in just over a week’s time, as you can see here:
The beginning of a green bean avalanche.
I also transplanted six squash plants — two of each of the three varieties I’m growing. I interplant them among other vegetables in an attempt to make it harder for squash predators to find them. And, as is my practice, after I mulched them, I immediately tucked a lightweight garden fabric over them to prevent insect attacks on the young plants. When they start blooming, I’ll be forced to remove the fabric. I explained my reasoning and methodologies on squash growing in a long post last year, which you can find here.
Here are a couple of the plants hiding under their cloths in this year’s garden:
The garden cloth produces more vigorous plants better able to withstand insect assaults.
As you may have read in earlier posts this year, I started my tomato seeds much earlier, because the absurdly warm winter/spring caused me to fear we are in for a sweltering, dry summer. Consequently, my tomato plants were enormous by the time I decided it was finally safe to transplant them in the last week. I waited this long, because we had two recent cold snaps. My hill went down to 28 degrees during the first plunge, and lingered around 30 during the second snap — way too cold for tomatoes, which is why mine remained in their cozy greenhouse during that time.
Finally, the long-range forecast looked worth the gamble, and I knew my horrendously pot-bound tomatoes couldn’t wait any longer. Because they were so huge, the Super Marzanos and the Sweet Treats already had fruits! I ended up planting sixteen tomato plants. This is more than I had planned on, but they were all so lovely that I just couldn’t bring myself to give that many away. I donated all but two of my extras to a local community garden. The last two went to a neighbor down the road.
Three Super Marzano tomatoes promise almost frightening productivity.
I only planted two Sweet Treats cherry tomatoes. I remember their productivity from last season.
I also planted four each of three pepper varieties. I’m not a fan of the hot ones, so all three are sweet peppers. Carmen is an Italian Bull’s Horn variety that we always enjoy. I was tempted to try a bell type called Merlot, because it produces dark purple fruits. And I planted a freebie sent with my order called Golden Treasure. All twelve plants appear to be adjusting well to their summer homes.
Peppers and squashes
More peppers at the end of the chive bed
I’ll end this post with a shot of one of the Bronze Fennel plants that I grew from seed last year. It’s really taking off, and I expect it to be a magnet for Black Swallowtail caterpillars this year. Behind it is a large shallow saucer that I keep filled with water for birds, toads, and other critters that might get thirsty while they’re patrolling my plants for tasty insect pests. Anything that helps draw pollinators, insect-eating birds, reptiles, and amphibians, and other predatory insects is welcome in my vegetable garden. That’s why I mix the veggies with herbs and flowers, and I think my results speak for themselves.
Bronze Fennel and friends
Here’s hoping we all enjoy a productive — and tasty — summer gardening season.
Warmest March Ever
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Greenhouse growing, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on March 26, 2012
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail enjoying Verbena ‘Homestead Purple’
That’s what the local weatherman proclaimed on the TV today — we’re having the warmest March ever. We’ve blown every existing temperature record to smithereens. Of course, I didn’t need the weatherman to tell me that. The plants in my yard have been telling me since about the time the deluded groundhog promised six more weeks of winter.
In all my 40+ years of gardening in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, I have never seen trees, shrubs, and perennials bloom so early, nor have I ever seen them bloom all together, as many of them are doing this year.
Take, for example, Redbuds, Dogwoods, and my Two-Winged Silverbell. Until this spring, I could rely on an orderly progression from Redbud bloom to Dogwood Show to Silverbell finale. This year, all the native Redbuds except one finished blooming last week. The one exception grows in a significantly cooler microclimate in my yard, nestled against a backdrop of towering Red Cedars, as you can see here:
That’s the top of my little greenhouse in the right front corner.
In normal years, as the Redbuds fade, the native Dogwoods begin to open their showy four-petaled bracts, first a creamy yellow, then bleaching to white in the spring sunshine. This year, the Dogwoods started opening last week. If you click on the link above to my Redbud account for last year, you’ll see that the native Redbuds had barely begun blooming last March 13. The Dogwood link above will show you that last year’s bloom peak was around April 5. I predict this year the peak will be in a day or two.
As for the Two-Winged Silverbell, last year it peaked around April 15. This year, the first flowers are open now, and judging by the size of the rest of the flower buds, it will peak in two more days. That’s about the same time as the Dogwoods, not two weeks later, as is usual. Here’s a shot of the Halesia flowers and buds that I took this morning:
This is just plain ridiculous! At this rate, summer foliage will be out in three weeks. The deciduous azaleas, ferns, mayapples, anise trees, and myriad other plants are also way, way ahead of schedule. I’ll show you photographic proof in another post soon.
But today I want to close with a veggie garden update. Here are the spring greens after the 3.5 inches of rain (that’s not a typo) we got last week:
I will be picking more goodies for another spring salad tomorrow. Tonight, I’ve covered them again with the floating row cover. We’re under a frost advisory tonight, and my yard often goes ten degrees below the official reporting station. The frost probably wouldn’t hurt them, but why take a chance with such potential deliciousness?
The Sugar Sprint peas are now producing tendrils. I expect flower buds any second. Tonight’s predicted frost will actually make them happier, so they don’t get covered.
Flowers needed ASAP to beat summer’s impending heat
This past weekend’s rain kept me mostly indoors watching the grass grow, but I did manage to finish transplanting all the tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse to larger pots. They’ll remain in these until it’s time to put them into the garden. Here’s a shot of the newly transplanted veggies:
The Super Marzano tomatoes that I planted two weeks ahead of the other summer veggies are enormous, even showing tiny flower buds. Look at them overpowering this shot of the greenhouse bench:
Their turn in the garden will come soon enough — assuming I manage to pull out enough of the cover crop of crimson clover on their beds to make room for them. The crimson clover has never grown to such gigantic size before. Usually winter freezes knock it down. That didn’t happen this year, so it grew, and grew, and grew. Soon the plants will be covered in red flower spikes that draw every pollinator in a five-county radius.
For good or ill, I’ll have plenty of warm weather for garden chores. After tonight’s frost and a chilly Tuesday, Wednesday is forecasted to be back in the mid to upper seventies.
Don’t even get me started on the pollen avalanche. March Madness indeed.
Warp Factor Spring
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Greenhouse growing, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on March 14, 2012
In mid-March, this is what I expect to see: vivid crocus blooms. This year, these two are stragglers, blooming later than their crocus comrades by more than three weeks.
My blooming trees are at least a week ahead of last year. Prompted by our absurd eighty-degree weather, Magnolia ‘Butterflies‘ has exploded into flower. Look how vividly yellow they are in the early morning as they just open:
And here’s what the tree looked like as I stared up its trunk from ground level:
I couldn’t stay too long. The potent perfume of the zillions of flowers was overwhelming.
My Chinese redbud is at peak bloom. Here’s a close-up:
And now the native redbuds are getting into the act. Here’s what the branches of one of my larger specimens looked like this morning:
And, yes, the sky really was that blue.
The winterhazels are nearly at peak bloom. Here’s a view of branches obscuring one of my bird feeders:
And here’s a close-up of winterhazel flowers:
I think their vivid color makes forsythias look dowdy.
There’s lots more, of course, but I want to give you a brief veggie update. Yesterday, I transplanted the Super Marzano tomatoes to larger pots. They didn’t miss a beat. Here they are looking like they’ve always lived in these pots:
And here are the other tomato, pepper, and basil seedlings:
Their roots are mostly hitting the bottom of their pots now. So they’ll be getting upgraded to bigger pots very soon.
Today, I sowed seeds of many of the free flowers that I got from Renee’s Garden as a benefit of my membership in the Garden Writers’ Association. I’ll be reporting on how they do throughout the growing season. I also sowed more basil seeds, because I’m planning on giving away some plants to a community garden. I’ve got the greenhouse and the seeds; I figure I should share the wealth.
Last weekend, Wonder Spouse double-shredded a big pile of fallen leaves that we had collected last winter. These broken-up leaves make the absolutely best mulch in the world for my vegetable garden. As fast as Wonder Spouse shredded it, I was tucking it around my sprouting sugar snap peas and onion plants. The peas responded instantly by growing taller. Here’s what they looked like this morning:
I am worried about our heat wave. We are predicted to remain 20 degrees above normal several more days, then we back down to a mere 10 degrees above normal. Even though I got my spring garden planted earlier than ever before, if the heat persists, I won’t get much of a yield from it.
For now, I’m watering often, in hopes that plenty of moisture will help the spring veggies thrive despite the heat. Our area remains in moderate drought, so every time I’m watering, I’m also praying for significant, frequent rain. And cooler temperatures, of course. Eighty-four degrees in mid-March is too much for any of us to handle for long.
Racing ahead of the vernal equinox
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Greenhouse growing, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening, Vegetable Gardening on March 5, 2012
See those little green sprouts just peeking up through the soil? Those are the Sugar Sprint Snap Peas I planted two weeks and four days ago. A few peas have been up for several days, but this morning I counted 24 pea sprouts. When the warmth returns day after tomorrow, I predict that at least that many more will appear. I like peas. I planted a lot of seeds.
Although I thought I had watered them well, I think the peas were waiting for a significant rain event, which we finally got this past weekend. My rain gauge reported 1.1 inches of rain for the two-day event. My creek actually rose and got silty! The floodplain held puddles of rainwater for over 24 hours. That hasn’t happened in so long that I can’t remember the last time it happened. Ten years ago, the floodplain was usually puddle-covered most of the winter. Of course, it helps to actually have a winter season, something we didn’t get this year.
Which brings me back to those enthusiastic peas. Most years, I’m just thinking about planting them, and this year they’re up and running. Did I mention how much we love the flavor of snap peas? They freeze well, so no pea is ever wasted.
It’s not just the vegetables that aren’t waiting for the vernal equinox to start their spring shows. Check out the blooms on my Chinese Redbud:
Chinese Redbud
Not all the blooms have opened, but enough now display their lavender radiance to brighten that corner of my winter landscape.
The native spicebush is covered in diminutive yellow flowers that make their visual impact by their sheer numbers — especially effective against a winter sky:
Lindera benzoin flowers
The crimson flowers of the red maples are morphing into equally vivid seeds — samaras, the botanists call them.
Acer rubrum flowers morph into winged crimson seeds
Many of my ornamental stars are rushing full tilt into spring bloom. Check out these pink hyacinths:
My beautiful Magnolia acuminata ‘Butterflies’ is cracking open its petals. I’m hoping they’re still closed enough to avoid getting zapped by tonight’s predicted temperatures in the low twenties.
Magnolia acuminata ‘Butterflies’ showing hints of yellow
There’s more, which I’ll show you soon. Every time I walk our five acres these days, something else is taking a headlong leap into a spring that hasn’t officially started yet.
Meanwhile in the greenhouse, all the tomatoes I sowed last Wednesday have germinated; most achieved 100% germination. Viva Italia, Early Goliath, Sweet Treats, and Big Beef are all up; these are my old reliable varieties, and I’m not surprised they’re raring to go. Indigo Rose seedlings began showing up a day after the first sprouts of those other varieties, and now all but one of the seeds I sowed has sprouted. My primary supplier of tomato seeds sent me a freebie package of mixed heirloom tomatoes, which I couldn’t resist. Most of those have germinated now, responding in about the same time frame as Indigo Rose.
With the impending explosion of tomatoes in the greenhouse, it is imperative that all spring veggie starts get planted out into the garden ASAP. My goal is to get them all tucked in before predicted rains return this Friday. I’m also hoping to direct-sow all the other spring garden veggies: beets, two carrot varieties, and many varieties of salad greens. Before I can start, I must pull winter weeds and crimson clover off of two large beds. I see a tired body and cranky joints in my near future.
But the pain will be worth it when I’m dining on just-harvested spring salads. My timing is good. The full moon will be smiling down on the newly planted garden this Thursday while Spring Peepers and American Toads chorus in the swamp, and the eerie territorial calls of Screech Owls (heard for the first time ever yesterday) echo among the still bare trees.
Piedmont Gardener 