Peas

Cascadia snap pea seeds

Outside, the garden is getting off to a slow start this year. The ground is saturated. The rainfall  for January and February was pretty close to average this year. March has been another story. As of today, the rainfall for Portland is twice the average it would be at this point in March (average for the month, as of the 18th, is 2.17 inches, the actual rain we have so far is 4.72 inches, per The Oregonian’s weather section). If we didn’t get too much more rain, we might come out about average by the end of the month. However, the forecast for the rest of the month is not looking good. There might be a few dry days this week, but the rest of the outlook says rain. Luckily, I was only planning for a few things to go out in the garden in March. I don’t expect they will get out on time. How late they are will depend on those April showers.

Cascadia snap pea seeds, soaked a day, and ready to plant

Cascadia snap peas, starting a 24 hour soak, for faster germination

Inside, there is another story. Flats are filling up the basement. A few weeks ago, Steven made a table for flats to put out in the hoop house. Over last weekend, we got the hoop house beds ready to plant and the first batch of peas went in. In my mind, this is another plus for hoop houses: not only a temperature buffer, but a rain buffer. Sure, the edges are wet, but overall the ground is dry enough to work up and plant. I’ll keep starting the seeds and potting up, if needed, until it is dry enough to get the beds outside ready to plant.

The table for starts in the hoop house

Peas germinating

The starts are ready to plant

The pea starts are in the ground

Cascadia snap peas