Snap Peas

Two kids plant a row of snap peas while the other takes our picture.

As part of our crop rotation plan, we’re moving our peas over one bed this year. With the soil prepared by mixing in a heaping helping of compost, it’s time to fill the row with snap peas. The kids enjoy planting peas, beans, and corn the most because the size of the seeds is easy to manage. I made us a two reasonably straight rows and gave them each some seeds with a rule of planting then about a hand width apart. We only planted one row today. In about two weeks we’ll come back and plant the second row. This will give us longer supply of delicious peas through out the early summer.

You may have noticed our pea fence previous strung across the lettuce bed. We’ll move it into position between our two pea rows before the plants get tall enough to reach it. The plants always need a little help getting started up the fence because it’s about a foot above the bed. Once they grab hold, I wouldn’t be surprised if the plants end up higher than the fence. Making the fence higher would only make harvesting more difficult.

Bush Beans

What was once an unused flower bed is transformed into a garden bed – the future home of pole beans.

Poking bush bean seeds into the newly prepared bed.

Our garden plan included a number of expansion projects. The first of these is converting an unused, sunny flower bed into a bean patch. In the past, we’ve grown only pole beans but I wanted to give bush beans a try. We’ll still be growing pole beans along with our corn in another area of the yard. I’m not sure how large these plants will grow so we plant a few extra. We can always move them somewhere else if it gets too crowded. The kids can tell you, there’s no need for a row. All you have to do is poke the seed into the dirt, pat it down, and water.