Summer 2013 Gardening e-Log - Snowpeas

    Snow peas I sowed late summer of 2012

I am not a gardener by the book---not particularly in regard to vegetables.   Yes, i have accumulated a considerable gardening books.  However, I only browse through these to  get acquainted with the common names of ornamental plants and trees that already existed in the yard since I bought my house,  

When I go to the gardening section of Bunnings, Target or K Mart, I took  note of what vegetables are in season.  Instead of buying seedlings, I buy instead seeds because I do not want myself to miss the thrill of seeing the seeds sprout then flourish into mature plant.  

The first time I planted snow peas in my backyard was in 2011. I could not remember which month in the cool season.  I was definitely sure however that I was quite late in sowing the seeds.  Nevertheless, as God was not killjoy, I saw my snow peas brought forth fruit---heaps of them in fact that I was able to freeze some for later use.

In year 2012, I sowed the seeds earlier in the cool season and I was blessed just the same with heaps of snow peas both to eat and for freezing for later use. Am I not blessed to have heaps of  dietary fibre and protein from snow peas from my own backyard! Surely am!! thank God!

I do not use any chemicals to control diseases of pests that attack snow peas.  However, there comes a stage in their life when  their leaves become mouldy.  I do not  bother how to treat the sick plants.  Rather, II just consider that that stage was the end of their life and just resolve to plant again next season

However i recalled to my mind the time I visited Julie, my friend with cancer when she was still alive, she told me I could grow snow peas all year  round.  Hmm? Is this so?  I never tried it until this early summer of 2012.  

Based on the results as shown here, Julie could be right...

This is the second batch of snow peas I planted, not on the same spot in my backyard where they climb up an erected trellis but  at a different spot in the backyard where I just stuck in the ground some twigs to serve as climbing posts for the growing vine..

Below are pictures of the first 8 snow peas I picked from the second batch of planting and the growing snow peas I sowed from seeds the third time: 

  

For the record, I also got considerable number of snow peas from the second batch---not  enough however to freeze.  I  still have to wait for snow peas from the third batch.  

My Backyard

.What is my backyard to me?

...the place where I work with my hands more and less with my mind digging, sowing seeds and watching things grow.  

...the place where I can express myself creatively and colourfuly by planting blooms.  

....the place where I can build a green wall---- without using hammer and nails

...the place where I can be a designer of living and green things

....the place where I show and display by love for the environment by recycling--in this instance constructions materials which otherwise could have ended in the tip

...the place where I can be a practicing permaculturist

....the place where I could make curves without using protractor or pens

....the place where I can watch the interplay of many factors leading to decomposition and enrichment of soil

...the place where I could work not necessarily to the letter, but with more flexibility, and the place where I could combine colours without using a palette

...the place where tomatoes grow from green to red with a lot of help from the sun and the rain

What is my backyard to me? There are more to it than I could articulate...it is a place where heaps of biological phenomena and great and trivial events take place...some incomprehensible to my biological mind, few others comprehensible and enjoyable even to the innocent and simple mind.

but most of all, my backyard is a place where I can commune with my Creator without any disturbance then sit down under the sun---smile, relax,  sip my coffee and eat Australia's yummiest biscuit called Tim Tam.