Need some garden help.

[mauser1959]

First of all , peas should be planted in a wide row system , keeps the soil much cooler , and retains moisture better ... plus the added benefit of more plants . The book "The Joy of Gardening " by Dick Raymond should be on every gardener's shelf ( he was the master gardener for troy built ) .

[DougGuy]

This is the backyard I have to work with. Not much room to do anything. The trees provide some awesome shade during the summer, but also limit the sunlight. The side yard to the left of the picture only has 2-3 hours of sunlight a day. It's 1130am when this pic was taken, so you can see how much sun the garden is getting. Sunshine usually hits about 7-8am and turns shady around 3-4pm.

Attachment 76727

I'd be all over that.. We have red clay here, nothing but trees and weeds like to grow in it. I buy lumber and treat it with Eco treatment (minerals, no chemicals) to preserve it from bugs and rot, and build beds 16" high, 42" wide, some 8' some 12' and some 16' long. The tomatoes I built an enclosure with salt treated 2x2s and wildlife netting. It keeps the squirrels out and the ones that do try to bite their way through I have "re-educated" with the pellet rifle. They totally avoid our back yard now. For soil, we use a commercially made organic mulch/topsoil mix, and we buy organic composted horse manure for $20 a whole trailer load and mix it in the soil. Any vegetable matter will work good, you can fold in leaf mulch, garden trimmings, eggshells, coffee grounds, and any vegetable trimmings from the kitchen we compost and use it in the soil. We make sure there is worms in the soil and if the moles get too many of them we add fishing worms from the bait store.



This small box for hot peppers:



My garlic bed:





Blackberries in rt bed, red potatoes in left. Wildlife netting is a must have where squirrels and birds would not leave you one single berry to eat. 100% predation without it. These are new blackberries, they made good fruit this year but wait til next year, we will need a stepladder to reach the berries, and of course a much larger enclosed trellis:



Black raspberries enclosed:



One day's fruit out of this tiny little berry patch.






Not meaning to hijack the thread but to give some ideas as to what works for places with lousy soil and high predation from birds and squirrels. There are many ways to box garden, this is just what works for us, locate the beds by how much sunlight they will get, your sunny patch in front of the garage would likely do quite well.

[Adam10mm]

I'd love to be able to turn the whole backyard into a garden but #1 I have two young kids that would be very upset and #2 we get so much snow up here I couldn't have a permanent setup like what you have.

When the neighbor plows for me to have a parking spot in the backyard for my Blazer, the snowbanks are 5-6 feet high and 12-15 feet deep. When I need to shovel off the garage roof, I just walk right up the snowbank to the roof. This pic was taken in late April of this "spring".

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

No doubt, space management for snow is important to us northerners. but if you have good soil, you wouldn't need to make the raised beds. I plow all my snow onto the eastern half of my garden...by march, there can be 8 feet of snow piled up. But then you mention the kids...they need space too.

[Adam10mm]

OK, I've got some pea pods on my pea plants. When do I harvest them? Do they have to be a certain length? Some are 2-3 inches long, but the plants aren't "covered" with them.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

If they are edible pod "snap" Peas.
I pick them when they the individual peas are about Half the size of what you think they'd be.
Otherwise,
regular Peas, I'd pick them when the individual peas just become full size, be sure to Shuck them right away and refrigerate...Or Process them...or cook them.

[snuffy]

[QUOTE=freakshow10mm;2314702]OK, I've got some pea pods on my pea plants. When do I harvest them? Do they have to be a certain length? Some are 2-3 inches long, but the plants aren't "covered" with them.[/QOTE]


When they feel full. You should be able to feel each pea in a row, average is 6-7 peas in each pod. When they feel pregnant, snap the pod off the vine, then snap the stem backwards toward the tip This allows the pod to be opened by squeezing the pod across the back to the bottom, it should pop open.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOV1BFPq34w

This gal starts at the other end, it's been several decades since I shucked peas, maybe that's how I did it too.

[mauser1959]

when they are the size of a robins eye ... eat the first ones fresh out of the garden .

[Adam10mm]

If they are edible pod "snap" Peas.
I pick them when they the individual peas are about Half the size of what you think they'd be.
Otherwise,
regular Peas, I'd pick them when the individual peas just become full size, be sure to Shuck them right away and refrigerate...Or Process them...or cook them.

The seed package said "sugar snap peas". That's all I know.

I'll have to head out there tomorrow and check things out.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

The seed package said "sugar snap peas". That's all I know.

I'll have to head out there tomorrow and check things out.

That's all you need to know, that's my favorite variety.
you can eat them as tiny as you can find them.
and they are delicious til the individual peas reach that "half-size" I talk about. Afterwhich, the pods start to get tough and stringy. and if you let them grow to full size (by accident or by choice), you can just shuck them like standard Peas. BUT, what I've noticed is that Snap peas that grow to FULL size are never as sweet as standard peas grown to full size...I suspect they were bred to share some sweetness with the pod.
Good Luck,
Jon

[popper]

concrete reinforcement wire, vertical. When the peas are done you can burn or pull the vines off. String works good too, you can cut the vines at ground, roll up & toss the whole works out. I did bush beans cause the weather down here won't let peas set fruit. I cut back my tomatoes in hot weather and got a good fall crop, if I could keep them darned horny worms off.