Give Peas a Chance

Ok, so it's a terrible pun, but I swear it's relevant!  

A couple of weeks ago, I was almost ready to consider my peas a write-off.  At the start of the season, I chose to sow them at the edge of the garden beside the shed, which is the darkest, coolest spot available.  I knew that it was a bit of a stretch and that little could thrive there, but I figured if anything had a shot, it was the peas.  For weeks upon weeks, nothing happened... they took ages to germinate, and then languished in the cold dirt.  I did what I could to start coaxing them up onto the bamboo tripods, but held little hope that they would actually ever start to flower.  But wait, oh pessimistic one!  In the heat of the last week, they've suddenly sprung to life - climbing, twining, blooming, and just this morning I discovered that I HAVE PEAS!!  The Mammoth Melting Sugar have begun to come into their own, and I now have sweet, tiny, baby peas.  Miniature green victory!

The rest of the garden is really starting to thrive now as well.  I'm thrilled to see the giant, gaudy yellow-orange blooms of male zucchini flowers starting to poke through the carpet of fuzzy leaves, hinting at the female flowers and fruit soon to follow.  Much of the lettuce has now been harvested, and I've replaced it with eight small watermelon plants, hoping that they'll have time to size up before frost.  I chose my varieties carefully for this reason, planting Malali and Cream of Saskatchewan because of their short maturing time.

I'm most excited about the tomatoes.  They all started off slowly, and I was worried that I hadn't started them early enough indoors this March.  But again, with the heat of June finally starting to kick in now, they've grown substantially in the last week, and have now begun forming flowers.  With a bit of luck, oodles of red, green, orange, yellow, purple, pink and striped tomatoes will be mine for the picking in the weeks and months ahead!  It's officially summer now, and these plants have no excuses.

Between the containers on the deck, the back garden and the front mixed bed, I'm nursing 25 tomato plants this season... I'm guessing I'm going to have to learn how to preserve with canning and sauces this fall.  Here's hoping!