Winter Garden

Last September I thought it would cool to grow a winter garden. I had heard that you could grow lettuce, carrots, broccoli and even snap peas at that time of year. So I tried it out. I started the seeds in their own little cups and then transplanted them into the garden beds once they were a little bigger. But if you read the back of seed packets carefully, you will realize that if you want to plant carrots or lettuce or anything that starts from a very small seed, then you will need to sow it right into the ground. I did NOT read the back of the packet passed the information about how deep to plant the seeds so I ended up with no carrot sprouts and little lettuce sprouts that died once they were transplanted. That left me with one meager little broccoli sprout and a couple of snap pea sprouts. After setting the seedlings up with their tomato cages for support to grow, I stepped back and let the peas do their thing.

Nothing happened for a couple of months. In January, I checked on the peas again to find that they had grown above and beyond the tomato cages and were beginning of fall over! Matt saved the day with a makeshift support made out of a scrap section of PVC pipe. A few flowers had also begun to show themselves. February flew by and left us in March. I had not checked the plants for a whole month and when I did, I found the snap pea plants even bigger than before and a few pea pods! I greedily picked the 11 full pods that I could find and helped support the growing plants with some string to keep them from tipping all the way to the ground. A week or so later, I picked a few more peas and made a contribution to my friend's stir fry for Sunday dinner. Then, yesterday, I went outside to my little garden to pick a few more peas.

Although it may not look like much, this is a strainer is full of 41 freshly picked sugar snap peas! Yummy! I used these for a salad for Sunday dinner. I figure that I have saved at least $10 just by growing AND using my snap peas that I grew in the garden! I would call that a success :)