It’s been panic stations here on the pea front! All the sugar snaps, snow peas, Dutch purples and Greenfeasts came up after the first sowing. But where I’d sown my absolute favourite shelling pea, the Telephone, (however did it get such a peculiar name?) there was no sign. Not one. So I set about ordering more seed and got them in the ground as quickly as I could…and have been waiting, patiently…..very patiently.
When I began gardening, almost 25 years ago, a dear farming friend told me that while watering might keep things alive, plants really only grow when it rains. How true his words have proved to be, time and time again. And so it was again after last Thursday’s big wet: what did I discover on Friday morning? You guessed it -the telephones pushing their first shy shoots through the soil! Panic stations over! We’ll be shelling those pods for sweet little green balls in the spring yet, and in the meantime, I’m already sneaking the odd pea shoot to munch from the first sowing!