urban vegetable patch

10 days after the first flower appeared, I see pea pods!! You can only imagine how excited I was. Snow peas are currently selling for $14.99/kg in the market! $14.99/kg,  are you kidding me?

2 Pea Pods

On the upside, I’ve now got peas! On the downside, I got only 2 peas. I don’t think I can do much with it. Oh well! Before I get all excited and all, I thought I will jot down some points for future reference.

My maturing Snow pea plants

So these are my notes:

• They are a cool climate vegetable. Plant either early spring or late Autumn
• They are really really easy to care for. I will even go as far as saying you can plant and forget about them.[link to previous post]
• Pea seedlings are really susceptible to bugs. I am not sure what bugs (my guess is earwigs) but I lost 2 seedlings due to their ferocious appetite.
• Good in fixing nitrogen in the soil. Plant them after harvesting hungry crops (Eg: Brocolli, tomatoes)
• It takes about 2 months to grow from seedling to flowering stage. Once they flower, pea pods will appear shortly, usually within a week.
• Not all sweet peas needs trellis. I bought a dwarf sweet peas from Diggers that are advertised as “No trellis needed”.
• I do not intentionally fertilise them except for the occasional left overs in my watering can of fertiliser.

Things I have read about but have not and will not want to experience

• They are susceptible to mould/fungus known as powdery mildew. This has not happened to me, but I try to only water the roots using the spout of the watering can

There is nothing worse than having your beautiful vegie plants seriously attacked by pests. You love and nuture them and suddenly almost overnight, they are devoured by hungry pests!

But the good news is this is a battle that can usually be fought and won, although sometimes the battle can be lost if the hungry hordes arrive unseen.
But here is one of my favourite recipes for ridding my vegie patch of catapillars, aphids and other common pests.

Put into a  spray bottle, 1 litre of warm water and stir in two tablespoons of soap flakes.  Stir this until completly dissovled and allow to cool. Then simply spray onto the leaves of your plants.

It is a good idea, not to spray fruit and vegies within 1 week of picking and remember to store all solutions out of the reach of children.