February 6th, 2009 the weather is a cool 62 degrees, cloudy and very heavy with humidity.
I checked the weather, as I do every day and found that a mild week is forecast. This often happens in the middle of a South Carolina winter and it is heavenly.....a good reason to live here. The risk is that we optimist gardeners will get our muck shoes on and plant too soon. That's me! This method is just way too much fun! (Gardeners, in general, must love changes and gambles.)
Knowing that about myself, I figured I would take a chance on an early Sugar Snap pea planting. What is better than a basket full of crisp, sweet, spring sugar peas!? And only a home garden can get these for you....really!
Green peas must have cool, moist conditions to thrive.....that's THRIVE. They will languish if early spring weather turns dry and hot and your crop might not be worth the effort in the end. But, if everything is right, peas will be your easiest crop of all. If you wait until a later, more safe time to plant peas, you will have a short harvest before the heat gets the plants in late May.
I prepared the pea bed last fall when I pulled up my tomatoes planted along a fence trellis in the middle of a large bed. I habitually lavish my tomato plants with great conditions, so this bed was nice already. Two weeks ago I applied a layer of a soil amendment (compost, in my case), a good dose of bone meal and Tommy plowed it in for me. There have been several nice rain events since then, so everything was ready. I mixed the seeds with inoculant, threw the seeds unceremoniously into the trench, and covered them with an inch of soil, figuring that a cold snap would kill this planting anyway.
A gardener walks a line between hope and cynicism in the shoulder seasons. We could have a warm, wet spring with a vicious cold snap that would nip back all the optimistic early spring sprouts. Or we could have cold weather right up until March....that doesn't often happen. Or we could have mild weather all the way in to summer. If the latter happens, early planted peas will have a bumper season. Therein lies the "rub" with a South Carolina spring. A good farmer always takes a chance on a before-Easter corn planting just so everyone will go by and see how much bigger his/her corn patch is than anyone else's. The shame of a late freeze is worth it.
I prefer to order a double batch of pea seeds for a replant in case of freeze so I can gamble on a very early planting like this. If I know the temperatures will be above freezing for a week with one good rain and few days of warm sun, I figure that is my sign to give peas a chance. Within that week, they should germinate under the ground and be ready to proceed out of the dark earth on the next warm days.
I know what you are thinking: we ARE going to have another hard freeze before April. I have that covered...literally. I am leaving the soil bare during this mild week so the sun can warm the dark soil to speed germination. Then, if a cold spell is forecast, I will heavily mulch the row with straw or pine needles and hold in that warmth, not allowing the sprouts to freeze.
If all goes well, I will have Sugar Snap pea pods in April lasting until the first hot weather comes. A little skillet of bright green pea pods in butter would be a welcome treat in late spring.
And pea plantings actually improve your soil if you leave the roots in place when the plants die.
