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Welcome All! I'm a dreamer, I hope you are too! A Posse ad Esse, or From possibility to reality, is a general state of mind. I hope you'll share your possibilities with me as I will with you. Namaste~

April 26, 2009

High density peas / garden updates

You may remember earlier this month when I talked about my high density pea planting experiment that I'm trying out this year. To recap; basically what I'm doing is to plant the heck out of my peas plants in two of my 4x6 (24 sq ft) raised garden beds to the tune of 300 +/- plants per bed. Two beds = approx. 600 peas.My self-declared "Crazy Pea Stalker" Irma, has decided to give it a try as well. Pending, that is, the results of my trials here first. She asked for an update, and here it is. So far, so good. Definitive... huh? There's not to much to say tell you the truth. The peas are growing great, with no signs of stress or crowding so far.The weather is still off again on again hot and cold, as is the norm here this time of year, and they've been covered more than once with snow and endured some cold nights (29-34ish. deg F) Because of that, and as in years past, they are still growing a bit slowly, but I've seen nothing that makes me think that they aren't going to do just fine. In fact, they'll probably take off here as soon as the temperatures stay consistently warmer.


And in other news....
The rest of the garden is coming along fairly well too.This bed has a mix of different cold weather stuff. The big greens in the middle are Bok choi that I'll be using in one of my "new" Stone Crocks to make some kimchi. (Still looking for a good recipe by the way...Anyone?...Anyone?) The big greens on the back right are the earlier, first plantings of broccoli and in front of it are a bunch of second and third plantings of it. To the left of the Bok Choi are some regular cabbage starts that I hope to make some of the awesome, super easy sauerkraut that I grew to love last year.This bed is another mix of cold weather stuff. From furthest away to closest I have a few more broccoli starts, then a few rows of kale and a couple of more rows of cabbage.Here's another of the raised beds, this one full of kohlrabi. It's an interesting vegetable that we first grew last year and all really enjoyed eating. I also have these planted in another area of the garden that isn't shown here. Also not shown are 6 rows of carrots (two plantings), Swiss chard, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, 8 rows of potatoes, 70 some onions and a couple of hundred sugar snap peas.

All said, things in the garden are coming along nicely for this time of year I think. We're making a concerted effort this year to really try to maximize our harvest from spring through fall. With any luck, we'll be able to rotate the summer crops right in as these start moving out.

Hope all's well in your own gardens.
Till next...
P~

7 comments:

Sandy said...

I'm following your pea experiment as well and will be doing it next time if it works out well. :-)

Kory said...

I'll bet your peas do fine. I grow mine about 2-3" from each other. Peas throw down a deep taproot, I doubt they'll starve.

Anonymous said...

Hi, great post!
The best kimchi recipe I've used comes from Sandor Katz' "Wild Fermentation" book. I don't currently have a copy though. Maybe someone else does, or maybe your local library?
Ann

Amanda R. said...

I am growing my peas the same way you are, so hopefully everything will work out :)

Irma said...

Thansk so much for the update, you rock! And it looks like I'm not the only one who will be trying the experiment.

Connie said...

Perhaps I missed this but what will they climb on?

Up here in the Uintah Basin we got pretty icy last evening with the rain and all but it didn't seem to hurt the budding trees.

Eva said...

Wow!! Your garden has got an awesome start!! I too am following the pea experiment...they look like they're doing great.