PLENTY OF PEAS AND SWEET PEAS

Garden blooming lushly - nasturtiums, alstroemeria, iris, amaranth, sunflowers

Buckets of peas - this is half of yesterday's harvest since the first batch went straight into our mouths. Yum!

Vases full of sweet peas. The blossoms we missed picking have already turned into pods, easy to distinguish from the edible pods.

Dancy tangerine tree is loaded. Living mulch underneath includes Irish Bells, coreopsis, nasturtiums, salvia, alstroemeria

Succulent blooms and spines offer great color and textural contrasts in bright sun.

Amaryllis blooms 2 years after collecting seeds.

Grape bunch thinned to encourage larger individual berries and to allow better air circulation as the bunches mature.

Irises in brilliant yellow.

Tatsoi that we've been eating for 7 months by harvesting the outer leaves is finally bolting (going to seed). However, the whole plant - including flower stems - is still sweetly tasting, so we're continuing to harvest for salads, stir-fries, and soups. Great economical value as well as tasty!

August Pride peach tree in full bloom.

Now's the time to let tomato plants set their bloom - when they're full of foliage and have reached the second rung of their cages. Until then, pluck off the blossoms so the plant continues to invest its energy into developing an extensive root system.

Palo Verde tree in full bloom.

Oro Gold grapefruit blossoms and fruit set.

Pineapple Guava - Feijoa - blossoms have a droplet of sugar at the base of the stamens and make colorful and tasty additions to salads.

Lemon verbena blossoms are unspectacular but delicate contrast to more substantial leaves.

Bearded iris add statuesque highlights to the garden. If yours are in big clumps but haven't bloomed well in a couple of years, consider separating and transplanting individual rhizomes. Then they'll reestablish themselves and bloom again in 2 years.

Harvest celery by removing the outer stalks. Rip them from one side to the other to break them off. Don't cut them since this will leave open cuts that encourage spoiling.

Good old California poppies scatter throughout the garden when their seeds can reach soil under the mulch.

     Finally those lush vines are producing bucketsful of edible peas and vasesful of fragrant posies.  This feels like the real beginning of yumminess and beauty for the coming summer. And the promise of fruits to come are blossoms on fruit trees and even a couple on boysenberry vines.
    
Peas
     My husband prefers peas that he has to play with – the ones that he has to shell and is rewarded with the morsels inside.  For him, I grow whichever I can find of these varieties - Burpeeana Early, Cascadia, Green Arrow, Little Marvel, Mr. Bit, Progress #9, Sabre, and Thomas Laxton.
     I, on the other hand, want my peas totally edible – picking and popping directly into my mouth, with lots of crunch and “green” sweetness. I count on Sugar Snap (which need a 7’ trellis) and Sugar Daddy Snap (which need only a 3’ trellis), and Oregon Sugar Pod.
      If I were planting now, I’d plant Wando, which is resistant to bolting (going to seed) in the heat.
 
Sweet Peas
     I love planting my sweet peas at the back of the cages containing the edible peas.  They come into bloom about the same time, but last all the way through the edible-pea picking period. 
     Even though the sweet pea pods are poisonous, there’s no problem distinguishing between them.  The flower pods are shorter, skinnier, furry, and grey-green.  The edible pod pea pods are longer, broader, more filled-out, shiny-surfaced, and bright green.
     After the edible pea harvest is done, you’ll allow the flower pods to continue maturing on the plants until both the foliage and the pods are completely brown and crispy – perhaps another month or two.  Then, snip off the pods with clippers to avoid having the pods shattering and scattering their seeds.  Of course, this will be somewhat unavoidable, but you’ll enjoy the results when the escapees sprout next fall!
 
More to Do In The Garden
     For more garden tasks to do now, check out both “April” (for what you haven’t managed to do yet), and “May” (for what to consider coming up) on my website under “Monthly Tips”.  The direct links = http://www.gardeninginla.net/april.html 
​and http://www.gardeninginla.net/may.html