Peas & Tomatoes

The peas we planted in the garden are growing quite nicely now.  The sugar snap peas are filled with beautiful blooms that will soon produce young, tender sweet peas.  Many of these will never make it to the table as they'll be eaten fresh from the garden.  

Sugar snap pea blooms

Others will be blanched and frozen and pulled out as needed.  Last night Tricia made homemade egg rolls using fresh bok choi (Chinese cabbage) with fried rice as a side with sugar snap peas.  Making homemade egg rolls is easier than you think.  The whole family gets involved in rolling them up and (obviously) gobbling them down!


Blooms are loading up... Sweet peas on the way!

In 2009 I ordered some Blue Podded Peas from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  I like planting things with different colors.  I think that the garden should be beautiful to look at as well as taste.  I never got the opportunity to plant the blue podded peas until this fall.  I read about them and they are not a sweet pea like the sugar snap peas.  They are more of a pea to be shelled an incorporated into a soup.  Excellent.  A hot bowl of soup, loaded with fresh vegetables is a hearty and warming dish. 

The blue podded peas were planted several weeks behind the sugar snap peas.  Even though the seed was several years old, the germination was near 100% and the plants are very healthy.  They have purple blooms unlike the white blooms of the sugar snap peas.  While picking the blue podded peas up and training them to climb on the trellis, I snapped the photo below.  I like it as it highlights the beautiful flower as well as the tendrils wrapping around the trellis and fresh growth shooting upward.


The bloom of the blue podded pea

A few weeks ago we discussed volunteer plants coming up in the garden.  In anticipation of frost, I dug a tomato plant up and put it in a pot.  I intend on bringing it into the garage (I don't have a greenhouse) and trying to produce some winter tomatoes.  It will be a fun experiment to see if we can grow winter tomatoes as well as a curious thing to see which variety of heirloom tomato this will be.  Tricia's favorite heirloom is the Black Krim.  I hope it is that one. 


Blooming Winter Tomatoes

If you look closely, this one actually has some little tomatoes already on it.  I apologize for the blurry photo.  If we can pull this off, it will be nice.  Due to the pest pressure this year along with dry conditions, we didn't can any tomatoes this year.  As a result, we've been hoarding the whole blanched tomatoes we have frozen.  Homegrown winter tomatoes would be a nice surprise.   

Baby Heirloom Tomatoes