I hate to even bring it up again, but do you remember my April Fool's disaster with starting early peas in a gutter? When I transplanted them and they fell apart, I thought I'd lost them.
I'm happy to say that they are now thriving.
The main reason for starting them indoors in a gutter was to speed up the harvest. I did lose that advantage because it took them a while to overcome the transplant shock. They are now about the same size as the peas that were direct sown on the same day that the gutter peas were transplanted. In the above picture, the gutter peas are on the right and the direct sown peas are on the left.
Oh well, I don't need to harvest them early. Since I only raised a small amount of peas in the gutter, it will probably be better now that we should be able to harvest them at the same time. The gutter peas do look vigorous now.
I've always thought that the coolest thing about peas was the way they grow. I love looking closely at their tendrils that grab on to whatever is near by. They are so fascinating.
Did you know that you can actually eat pea tendrils and young pea leaves? You need to harvest them before pea pods form. Pea tendrils are said to taste similar to spinach with a sort of nutty flavor, often eaten in soups, salads or sauteed. I'll have to give that a try someday.
This crop of snap peas will be grown for those sweet peas! Until the pods show up, I'll just keep marveling at how the peas keep climbing the trellis by grabbing on to the trellis netting with those cool tendrils. So I'll leave you with a couple more shots of those monster-like pea tentacles!
Oh, I almost forgot. Cucumbers have cool tendrils too, and I just built a new taller trellis for them. Come back again tomorrow, as I will be posting how to build a simple but effective vegetable trellis.
Keep Growing!