Does anyone else think this is the best time of the year for gardeners?
I know you can't really see what's going to happen, but this is always the most inspirational part of the year for me. It might vary depending on the year and your garden's various microclimates, but at the end of February I think “this is it!”
Seed catalogs in the mail, fruit and nut trees blooming, and the species bulbs remain faithful. I'm ready to think about last year's failures as “learning” and there is (usually) free water falling from the sky. The landscape is green rather than “golden”, the temperature neither East coast cold, nor desert hot, and I don't yet know that have once again, I have bitten off more than I can chew.
Usually with just a modicum of luck, planning, and hope, growing in the garden are parsley, some coles (usually collards), some alliums (garlic and shallots, maybe onions), and some peas. And peas! I always plan for peas. Sugar Snaps, Sweet Peas, and Favas!
In my neck of the woods, it gets really hot, really fast in May, so I plant sweet pea seeds in the fall, to extend their growing season. Planted in November, they don't all always survive the freezes, birds, snails, and slugs, but some usually do, and it's like a gift you cannot buy.
For sweet peas, I look for varieties that bloom early, are fragrant, and are somewhat heat tolerant. Sweet Peas are photoperiodic, so I looked for “day-neutral” also called winter flowering, or “short-day” varieties, like the Elegance and Mammoth series. That being said, my favorite is 'April in Paris'.
In late November, and again in February, I soak overnight, drain, then sprinkle with pea inoculant, and grow them in containers on an obelisk, tomato support, or pea cage. I sow them around the inside and outside edges of the support and cut them back when they have 3 or 4 leaves. Sweet Peas are not edible.
Favas are edible go in around the same time and treat them the same way, but I plant them in the ground. Most only grow a few feet tall, and don't require as much support as the sweet peas, but they do need some, especially when the peas develop. I choose the large-seeded variety which is best for eating, like 'Aguadulce', rather than the small ones used as cover crops.
Perhaps my favorite are the edible sugar snaps. No matter when I start, and how many I grow, we can't get enough. I like 'Sugar Ann' and 'Sugar Daddy', treated like the Sweet Peas, in rectangular containers fitted with pea cages. I clamp them on because while they don't get quite as tall as the sweet peas, but perhaps heavier.
