May 26, 2016

Good morning, reading about snow pea culture and it is frequently said “not to plant successions” because “they all catch up”. Meaning, there would not be any extension of the harvest.

Last fall I direct seeded my peas around the middle of October. I really should have taken a temperature reading of the soil because it turned out to be Way to warm. The seeds I planted were 2015 germination tested for 80%. I may have gotten 20% to germinate and grow.. I reseeded a week or two later with not much better results. I pondered for some time and finally decided to order some more seed to sow. This time I chose to germinate them and then plant. There was 100% that emerged because I only planted seed that had roots.

This sowing was made well into the zone where I normally do not like to sow seed. It was a warm fall except for the Thanksgiving hissy fit. I planted this germinated seed the week of Christmas. It was slow to come up but it did emerge.

This sowing filled out the holes from the October sowing.

As expected these plants over wintered and began to grow robustly by the middle of February. The first planting began to bloom at this time too. Towards the end of February there were a number of overnight lows in the teens. This knocked the pea blossoms in the dirt. It wasn't until the middle to latter part of March that the first bed began to produce. The second planting was not producing. It was not until the third week of April that this bed came into its own and actually out produced the first bed. The first bed had peaked in harvest, where as the second bed peaked the fourth week of April.

So maybe successions that are planted a week or two apart will “catch up” but with planting a month or better apart there is an extension to the harvest.

Peas are a heat sensitive plant so it really all depends on Mother Nature. Ah yes more things to ponder for next year. Some times these culture changes are just stumbled upon by accident!

Yes what a wonderful bought of precipitation last week. All told a little over an inch. Save for the drip line on the house there was no signs of water flowing. And save for one very brief moment of hail there was no“hard” water. I can handle everything else that Far West Texas throws at me but Hail brings chills to my spine. I can cover and hope for the best. It is all about intensity and duration. I have been very fortunate not to have been on the receiving end of very many of theses events.

This time of year if I am going to be away in the afternoon and there is prospects of precipitation, the garden is covered. Hopefully instead of the the garden being chewed up and left for dead that the plants are just bruised. With bruised plants there still is foliage that can be pruned. Where as with uncovered plants, there may only be bare stems and hopefully the growing points were not nuked by the hail.

Today I anticipate there will be chard, kale, green onions, carrots, beans, and squash. The garlic harvest is nearly completed. I want to select the bulbs for next years crop before I start to sell. The bulb onion harvest will be begin soon. The onion tops are starting to fall over. A big dust devil in the garden really helped with this. A large piece of fabric with several rocks were dragged across the bed. I am glad it was at this time instead of a month ago. The sweets have really started to grow with lots of nice runners. Hopefully by the middle of June I can get the last sweet bed planted.

That succession thingy, timing is everything. I reseeded my lettuce with hopes of having a continuous harvest. But I see the last of the lettuce bolting before the lettuce seedlings are transplant able. There is some lettuce this week but there will be a dry spell before the summer crisp (summer variety of lettuce) harvest can begin.

I see the chances of rain starting to show up more frequently with each passing day. It would be nice to have some regular rain. We can only hope.