Well, the photo is from another year, a few weeks later than now, but it gives a good idea of how full our greenhouse is. Currently the main user of space is broccoli. We have also started moving plants out to our coldframes, to free up space inside, and to harden off the plants ready for planting out.
We still haven’t done any tilling or disking, but if all goes well, we’ll do some tilling tomorrow and Thursday, before the next rain. Then we’ll work like crazy to make up for some of the time lost to snow and ice in the past month.
We have managed to sow our peas! It feels like such a triumph! We decided we didn’t need to soak the seed overnight as we usually do, because the soil is so wet. As I said last week, we sow peas in the middle of spinach beds. Several advantages-
- No need to wait for the soil to dry out to till – just hoe and sow.
- The spinach already has rowcover, which the peas can share.
- The peas will grow vertically, not encroaching on the spinach.
- As the spinach gets ready to bolt, and we pull it out, the pea plants are getting bigger. This “relay planting” makes good use of space and time – more efficient than using two separate beds for the two crops. (There’s more about relay planting in my book.)
But, oh, the vole tunnels in those cozy row-covered beds! How to get rid of voles? Voles love pea seeds, so we have set out lots of mousetraps baited with peanut butter. We have flags marking the spots where the traps are, and the intention of checking them every day and re-setting them as needed. I like the Intruder Mousetraps (they aren’t paying me to say this!). They’re easier to set than the traditional wood and wire ones, and much easier to empty. Just squeeze the back flap to open the trap and shake out the creature competing for your food.
We have a short spring here, and a hundred people to feed, so we don’t grow shelling peas. It would just take too long to pick them, too long to pod them, and the harvest season would be too short. Peas don’t thrive in hot weather. Instead we grow lots of Sugar Ann dwarf snap peas and some snow peas. I hope we win the competition with the voles!
Another sign of spring has been our first harvest of garlic scallions. They were a little bit shorter than usual for the time of year, but the psychological boost of harvesting a new crop made me do it! They are only a fraction of the size of these lush ones from a few years ago. usually we harvest them from early March to early May. We have lots, and a little goes a long way, so it will be OK to be harvesting them small at first. Garlic scallions are a treat! So easy to grow, and ready so early in spring, when there isn’t much else apart from stored roots and tubers and leafy greens. (Mind you, we are having delicious and beautiful salads, so I’m not disparaging leafy greens!)
Photo credit Kathryn Simmons
How to grow Garlic Scallions:
All you need is a small space that’s close to where you walk in spring. In the fall, as you prepare your garlic cloves for planting, set aside the tiny cloves. They wouldn’t grow good big bulbs anyway, so you’ll want to sort them out. After you finish your main planting, take your tiny cloves to your early spring-accessible piece of garden, make a series of furrows as close together as they go, tumble in the tiny cloves, any which way they fall, close together, shoulder-to-shoulder. Cover over with soil, then mulch with straw, hay or tree leaves. When they are 5″ or more tall, start harvesting. You can pull them up, trim the roots, peel off one outer leaf, then bunch. Or if you don’t have many, you do have a long spring, and you’d trade a longer wait for multiple harvests, wait till they are 10″ tall and cut the greens. They will regrow for repeat cutting. Garlic scallions are great for stir-fries, soups, pesto, omelets, salad dressings. . .