Peas Planted early, but at the best time!

Hey everyone we planted Sugar Snap peas today! Here in central North Carolina it gets very hot by May and unless you plant your peas early the heat slows them down and wilts them. So we plant them early. Meg planted these thick as she always does.  This way makes a great crop so you can loose a few to birds or slugs, you still get a good crop. We used 1/2 pound peas for 4 10 foot rows. BTW you can order peas online or by catalog as the stores don't have them until mid March... Ours came from Johnny's Select Seeds.

Also we covered them with a light covering of straw and then a protective fabric called remay. That will keep the birds out of them as they get started.

This shows you how thick we plant our peas!

A word about our chickens, we have 6 hens. On January 29th they laid 6 eggs, today February 01 they laid 6 eggs AGAIN!

That green stuff and book cover!

Clouds of oak pollen the past 2-3 days here. This morning a long steady rain is helping wash it away. The Purple Rain pansies here yesterday were blooming almost green with pollen. Driving from Durham to Hillsborough(10 miles at most) I counted 6 clouds of pollen along the way. Usually Loblolly Pines are the trees creating pollen clouds here, these areas had little in the way of pines, had to be oaks.

Yesterday at 9am my bees were pollen drunk on their porch not even thinking of flying off to get pollen. Exciting news about the nuk (small bee hive) we started 8 days ago. On Wednesday small groups of bees were outside the nuk, by Friday there was an orientation flight of 40-50 bees, I was so excited!

Meg pulled all the house plants outside yesterday, the house seems so empty now. The plants some got sunburned yesterday, today they are getting soaked.

Oh even more exciting news I am pleased to announce that a photo of my is going to be on a book cover, my second book cover. Here it is a female Diana Fritillary, I took this photo 12 years ago! These butterflies are kind of rare and females are very hard to find. The prime spot this photo was taken the next year VADOT had a bulldozer remove all the Common Milkweed along this rarely used forest road. To my knowledge this site is still a goner.

Below are some photos I took in the rain using an umbrella this morning.

One of the woodland beds we added a rock border to weeks ago, notice the new blue pots in place. Mostly large hellebore plants, hanging over the rocks is that picotee dougle hellebore. You can see a few native May Apple growing next to the rocks as well, they were not planted there.

A close up of our Edgeworthia, beautiful isn't it?

  Remember those peas I planted on January 26th, now nearly 2 foot tall, likely be 3 foot in a few days with this cool rain soaking them. The temps have been in the 80s most of last week, too hot for peas, this is why we plant them very early...

Peas update March 01

As many of you might recall I planted Super Sugar Snap Peas on January 26. Growing peas  we need to get an extra early start on them because it gets very hot by May here in North Carolina. I'm pretty happy with them thus far, Meg has barely seen them as she has long work days as a teacher.

Here is what one of the rows look like.

You just can not plant peas too thick. We had a few diggers that eat a few sprouts, but mostly we are going to have lots of peas!!

Bloomsdale Longlasting Spinach planted January 24, 2011

Almost ready to eat, we are still picking spinach planted last fall.

Crimson Candles camellia opened yesterday, it's third year here. The leaves have tiny brown spots and the blooms here are less than previous years, hoping fertilizer will help. Any tips appreciated?

Silver Moon hellebore with honey bee visiting before 8AM on March 01.

It was 80 degrees again today, much warmer than usual for this time of year. I also saw my first spring butterfly a Spring Azure.  Baby Eastern Painted Turtles lined the edges of the pond, the adults were out on logs sunning themselves. Tonight our first frog concert as the Spring Peepers are at level 4 on a scale of 10.

Bloom Day my first!

I've been reading Bloom Day posts for years but have never joined in with my own post. Today I'm late but wanted to join. Hellebores in the garden are really going at it, many more yet to open, so I thought I would show you what we have right now, not all but some of our best.

We plan on going on Saturday Feb. 25 to the Pine Knot Farms Hellebore Festival Any one else going let me know perhaps we could meet up? Not sure we'll buy much as taxes this year has busted our budget.

This is Red Lady one of our first hellebores we purchased, you can see why.

Helleborus Breezy 13

 Likely the biggest Helleborus hybridus in our garden. These are named 'Breezy" as our friend Breezy was moving and she let us dig these hellebores out of her garden.

Helleborus Breezy 09

 This is growing under our back deck, never seen two so different flowers on a single plant!

Helleborus Breezy 04

 Just starting in the front garden, this flower has been smiling like that at us for weeks!

Helleborus Breezy 03 

This is the first bloom on this plant really looking forward to seeing the blooms, any day....

Helleborus Breezy 08

 One of the first to open here. You can see seeds are setting in and seedlings off to the lower left.

Helleborus Breezy 07

 Been waiting to see the first blooms on this plant as well.

Helleborus foetidus 

(above showing slight pink edges and huge seed pods)

(below the full plant)

 Really proud of this plant,can it get any bigger? The bees have been enjoying all these flowers.

Pansy 'Purple Wing'
Most the pansies and violas in the garden have been slightly set back by the recent 20 degree night we had about a week ago. These look pretty good IMO.

 Ok we did not grow these lilies. Below are the locally grown lilies I got Meg for Valentines. These lilies we buy them often, the aroma can take over the house and they last about two weeks. See the large white one O measured it 9 1/2 inches across if that tells you the scale of these lilies.

Lots of people buy store purchased roses for Valentines, not many know the terrible conditions some of those roses are grown in South America and Africa. I will not bother you with the details this blog touches on it very well.

Here are the Sugar Snap Peas I planted on January 26. Seems I added organic fertilizer to one of the patches, the patch without fertilizer looks better than the one with the fertilizer. The peas planted last fall it appears the 20 degree night toasted them. Meg reminded me peas do not need fertilizer.

The bees are doing well, I added another super for honey yesterday and opened up the entrance for them to reduce the traffic jambs at the entrance. It looked like 3 out of 4 bees were returning with pollen!

Be sure to visit May Dreams Garden to see other Bloom Day posts.

Planted Sugar Snap Peas Today!

The best crop of sugar snap peas we have ever had here were planted early, on January 21th. Here is central North Carolina it gets pretty hot by the end of April, peas do not like warm weather. So given my work schedule was open today I went out and got my hands dirty! It is supposed to rain the next two days so it was now or wait til the soil is dry enough.

I worked the two 8 foot strips were I was planting with a shovel then sifted the soil with my bare hands. I had to remove acorns, henbit and other weeds. I've told this before and will tell it again as we have a lot of new visitors here. First inoculate the peas with a little water and inoculant, I poured the 3/4 lbs of peas into a quart container and shook them up so the inculcate would stick to the peas well.

Here is the real trick plant your two rows about a foot apart under your trellis and drop the peas in very heavy like in the photo below.

Putting so many peas in the furrows is insurance against birds, squirrels, slugs and peas that do not sprout. This way you get a nice full trellis of peas. It just works, Meg taught me this. These two rows 8 foot long may produce 4-5 gallons of peas this way.

Then cover the rows with wheat straw to hold in the moisute and hide the peas from critters finding them. Then we let the peas grow. This trellis will need more strings before the peas grow very much. Make sure your peas do not fall over by making sure they stick to the trellis or the plants will bend in half and you'll loose your pea crop.

 Above is our garlic patch, that first one is about 3/4 inch in diameter. I added fertilizer today to the garlic. What type, grocery (coop) store garlic. That green clump behind the garlic is the sugar snap peas Meg planted last fall.

 These hellebores opened today in the garden. The white one I call Breezy 13 and the pinkish one I call Breezy 14. These were given to us by our friend Breezy, she gave us a lot of them.

 Above is Henbit a weed that grows in our lawn, it is very invasive, but the bees like it and I heard the pollen from it is red.

 Here are some of my girls with pollen sacs on their hind legs from today. The brown pollen below was being carried in like crazy. Three colors of pollen was seen.

 Anemone blanda I think from the garden.

 Firefly crocus is still hanging on. It is my favorite, for now.

Gypsy Girl crocus has just opened up, kind of sneaky about it, never saw it coming.

Never would have dreamed!

We could grow carrots this big! These carrots are on a 2 x 6 railing to give you perspective on the size. The taste, well a lot better than store bought. You know those pre washed baby carrots that everyone buys these days, no taste at all when compared to freshly grown organic carrots. If you can't grown them, try buying some at your local farmers market, worth every penny trust me.

Our trick on these? We, OK Meg planted them in late fall and they were in the cold frame. We mixed lots of compost in the soil every year for the the past several years.  We also have spring planted carrots that are tiny right now, but growing every week. Just ate one of these so hard to resist.

 Here is the labyrinth bed of potatoes planted a few weeks ago. It starts on the lower left with a basil plant then potatoes go almost to the center. The after the potatoes pea greens in the center.

 Our larger garlic bed. You can see our onions on the left of the garlic, they are huge. The lettuce in the front is almost past prime at this point. The pepper plants on the lower left were grown from seed.

Meg you need to pick these Sugar Snap Peas! This is half on one of our three trellises of peas.

 Our latest blooming clematis, forgot the name of this one. Last year we had more blooms...

 Meg finally got some Comfrey. As you can see it is doing great in our garden. More on comfrey.

 Black Cohosh, Actaea racemosa Meg brought this home from an Women's Herbal Conference last year. Doing very well.

Self sown larkspur in the cold frame.

 In the past few years I have been taken in by spiderworts. I think this is the one I got from SweetBay. Just love it!

 Oh so beautiful.

 This one is the largest flowering one I have. It has been here for 10 years or so, my one plant in now 4 plants, not a fast spreader by any means.

This spiderwort is pale blue, the camera lost the blue in the petals. Saw an alba "white" spiderwort yesterday on a blog...

More on the 13 year cicadas, I found one casing on the deck earlier in the week and a confirmed one dead in a pan of water here in the yard this morning. We must be slightly out of the main brood. . I read a report of hundreds of thousands of them being seen and heard at Jordan Lake an hour from here.

Bees and Peas

The time is finally almost here, my bees are due very soon. Not sure I'm ready, we'll see. The hive is in the screened porch. I need to level in 2 concrete blocks over looking to pond for the bees and place the hive on it.

 Not sure  many of you know that Tulip Poplar flowers are the main bee pollen source right now in our area. Followed by blackberry flowers. This Tulip Poplar flower was one of many that were on the ground after high winds the other night. If not for the fallen flowers many of us would not even know the poplar was flowering high up in the trees.

 Here is 'Carolina Moonlight' baptisia, doing very well for a three year old plant. To the right of it is Meg's Sugar Snap Peas, just started flowering two days ago. Oh and that is the garden watch kitty Grumpy on the railing.

Here is another trellis of Sugar Snap Peas nearly 4 foot tall. I see peas on lots of blogs nobody seems to know the best way to plant them. I don't mean to insult anyone by that. This is how Meg plants them. Two rows about 1 foot apart plant the peas thick almost next to each other. Yes I said almost next to each other. You got to plant lots of peas as birds and other varmints will get them, other wise after they get what they can your left with very little pea plants. The yellow flowers at the top of the peas is our kale flowering in the cold frame.

This iris I have had for years, I used to know the name, great showing with three flowers at a time.

Clematis henrii in full bloom. I have had this plant for nearly 15 years. I counted 32 blooms this morning, once fully open maybe 60 flowers will open. Wish I knew how to control it better?

Spiderworts in bloom. I know many of you further south hate these as they are so invasive. Our hard clay and dry summers makes them stay put, so far.

Here is part of the garden. Fava beans in flower in the lower front center, peas at the back left side, the cold frame has bolting kale, to the right of the cold frame bolting mustard greens and rape. The dark green mass in the enter is Swamp Sunflower, massive isn't it. I trimmed it back a lot too!

 This peony I just happened to have a tape measure with me when I took this photo. The tape measure read 6 - 7/8 inches across! I believe the clematis henrii would match this in size too. Hard to believe we get 7 inch blooms in our garden!

Back in the fall when I planted these pansies I never imagined they would look this good in the garden. The pansies will falter once it gets in the 90s here and they will be pulled out. These were grown locally from seed less than a mile from here. The primrose next to it is my oldest primrose over 12 years old, it barely flowered this year and the flowers were stunted.

Sometime this weekend we have to pull up the kale, rape, mustard greens, arugula, muzuna all of which are bolting. And we need to plant potatoes (very late) tomatoes, peppers, basil and other plants we grew from seed.