Tasty Treats Ready for Crunching

Strawberries in forest dirt. By far the best tasting!

Grey Dwarf Peas from the upstairs garden. The larger ones were starting to get tough, so, duly noted, Mother Nature, eat them while they're still baaabaaaies!

Kale and Spinach (from one of the very few plants that didn't bolt). The biggest thing I noticed was the flavour and texture of the kale. It was thicker, crunchier, and had waaay more flavour than the scrawny stuff you get in spring salad mixes. This kale is BRAWNY! ...And the spinach a perfect match, deliciously sweet.

Project: Staking the Peas

Finally, I staked the third batch of peas; the ones that live on a sunny patio a few floors above our condo. I'd been putting it off for the last few hectic weeks, too busy with multiple work obligations as well as homework. That's also why I 'forgot' (Really, my anxiety was just so high I couldn't deal with the garden unless it was all going to work out perfectly without effort.) to water all of the plants for close to two weeks.

The first batch of peas, the familiar bucket peas, were beginning to flower when they dried out and died. When I pulled those plants out to go into the compost, I found what I think are nodules of nitrogen-fixing bacteria growing off of the thin roots.

The big lump you see is the remainder of the seed! I thought it was pretty cool that the whole plant climbed out and around the softened brown shell.

That blurry white blot is what I think are the nitrogen fixing bacteria

close up. couldn't get the camera to focus. 

I disassembled the wigwam-style staking that I had done for those peas and re-used them for the third batch. The second batch I had staked within a day or two of the first plants surfacing, which seems to be the best way to do it. They are flourishing now and getting taller everyday. For the second and third batches, the surviving pea plants, I did a variation of the central-support style of staking.

Way too tall to be unsupported!

 The upstairs peas were so tangled when i finally got to them, I was worried they wouldn't survive the shock of having me pull them apart. The stalks were bent and felt loose, like the insides were turning to jelly.
For my variation of central-support, I skipped the central pole. Around the outside of the planter I placed four sawed baseboards (retrieved from our building's ongoing reno) and tied sticks to them to increase the height. I had to do this because the vines were already taller than the baseboards alone.

Now: Supported and stable.

I chose this style because I wanted sun to come down through the middle and hit all of the plants equally.

OMG! I squealed when I saw the first pod. Very cool to see how the flower becomes a pod; can you see how the flower is wrapped around the beginning of the pod?

A wee little pea with a LOT of flavour!