Seed Saving - Purple Peas

Peas are an early season crop that like the weather slightly cool. As the days are getting hotter and longer, the pea vines are now turning brown and it is time to start saving their seeds. This year I had planted Purple Peas from the Hudson Valley Seed Library.

1. Save from the best stock which will pass on their good genes to the next generation. The one that climbed to the top of the trellis first or the one that started to look like a small shrub rather than a bean bush are good choices. Make sure the plants you pick are free of disease or any other problems. Take from more than one plant to add some diversity.


2. Select the best fruit. Do you have fruit that you took a picture of to show off? Those are the ones for saving.


3. Let the fruit dry on the plant until the pod turns brown. This will usually be 4 – 6 weeks past the time you would have picked the fruit for eating. If you are doing this late in the season and the weather is turning cold or wet, pull the entire plant and hang it upside down where it is warm and dry until the pod is finished drying. Now should be early enough to let them dry in the field.


4. Shell the peas as if you were preparing them for dinner. Discard any seeds which are unusually small, wrinkly, mushy or otherwise odd. Place the seeds on a cookie sheet or paper towel and put them in a warm dry place allowing them to dry further. Do not put them in the oven, toaster or other artificial heat source as this cook them and render them useless for planting.


5. Put the seeds in a container and store them in a cool, dry place. An envelope like a seed company would use is more than sufficient or for larger quantities a jar or piece of Tupperware will work well.

Companion Planting

Companion planting is the is the idea that two varieties of plants can do better when planted together rather than each of the plants being planted alone. One plant may repel a particular pest that bothers another plant or one plant may add something to the soil that another plant needs.

Some people will plant flowers next to their vegetable plants to lure pollinators who can visit the vegetable plants while they are there for the flowers.

Last year, I tried planting sunflowers at least a dozen times, but the groundhog would get at them every time they got to be more than a few inches tall. This year, the combination of a better fence and a cat in the yard has kept the groundhog and rabbits at bay and the sun flowers are doing very well.





I also planted some poppies although were a little too early and only a few have made it.





Here is a picture of the cat on the roof of the garden shed which is right next to the garden. No one is really sure how he manages to get up there, but no one really cares either as he works much better than the plastic owl I put up there last year.

Groundhog Update

The groundhog got into the home garden and did a lot of damage to the peas and beans. I’ve put up a bigger door and that seems to have kept him out. The beans have recovered nicely and are producing well, but we were not so lucky with the peas.

Meanwhile, at the victory garden, another groundhog has been getting in. A number of the other people at the victory garden have complained of similar and a few have even taken to setting out traps. The two odd things about this groundhog are that it only eats the squash plants and seems to be going over the fence rather than under it.

Here is an article from the New York Times about the raising popularity of rooftop gardens. That’s certainly one way to deal with groundhogs!

New York Times Story

Victory Garden - After

Here is a picture of the victory garden after clearing out the rocks and weeds, putting up the fence and planting the plants.

The fence is made out of plastic "poultry netting". It is the same premise as regular chicken wire without all the scrapes on your hands and arms.

The dirt itself is very nice. The dirt at home has a lot of clay in it and is very dense. This is much more loose and will hopefully be good for carrots and radish.

The home garden is for things which get used every day: tomato, cucumber, etc ... and this space for the slower growing items like melons.

Groundhog Captured!

Last year, a good portion of the garden was wrecked by a groundhog who thwarted every effort to keep him out of the garden. Today, my neighbor mentioned he caught and re-located a groundhog. I've buried the fence in the ground this year, but hopefully that was the same one and I'll have one less problem to worry about this year.

Putting Up The Fence

Last year, we had a problem with a ground hog. That was the first time we had a serious problem in the vegetable garden as the rabbits are usually content with the flower bed. We tried several things including a rock boarder along the base of the fence, fox urine, and a ground hog repellant that killed more plants than anything else, but he ended up ruining a substantial part of the crop.

The garden itself is surrounded by two deep railroad ties. The fence I use is just 3 foot chicken wire that I got at the Home Depot. I've dug a trench about a foot deep around the perimeter and buried about the bottom foot of the fence. This gives me about a foot below the ground and three feed above the ground which will hopefully be enough to limit going both over and under the fence.