Tradition dictates that we plant our first peas on Valentine's Day, but the weather thought otherwise --- it snowed on Valentine's Day, and on the four days thereafter.   We finally got lucky on Friday, with a stunning day that sent us scurrying in five directions to take advantage of the warmth.

I had soaked my snow pea seeds the night before, so they were plump and ready to hit the ground running.  Without fungicidal coatings (that pink stuff on some storebought seeds), the earliest spring peas are in a footrace, trying to sprout and grow before bad fungi in the cold, wet soil causes them to rot.  Since it's supposed to be a stunning weekend (temperature in the fifties!!!), I've got high hopes for my peas.

As always, I soaked a few peas too many, so I tossed them to our four year old hens.  These girls are still laying, probably because I give them treats now and then like these plump peas or last week's chickweed.  They gobbled down my excess seeds in seconds and then stood and stared up at me --- more please?

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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