Today is the first day of spring and all of us here at my Bedford, New York farm are thinking about the gardens. In fact, the season’s first peas are already in the ground.
Peas thrive in cool weather, and young plants can even tolerate light frosts. It’s important to plant peas as soon as possible in spring in order to get a full harvest before hot summer temperatures arrive. Yesterday, my gardeners planted different varieties of peas outside in my vegetable garden. They also planted fava beans, also known as the broad bean, an ancient member of the pea family.
Enjoy these photos.
Snow, snap, and shelling peas are all members of the legume family. Snow peas are also known as Chinese pea pods. They are flat with very small peas inside, and the whole pod is edible. Snap peas are a cross between snow peas and shelling peas – the whole pod is eaten and has a crunchy texture and very sweet flavor. Shelling peas are also sometimes called garden peas, sweet peas or English peas. The pods are firm and rounded, and the round peas inside need to be removed, or shelled, before eating. The peas are sweet and may be eaten raw or cooked.
Peas grow vertically and hang from tendrils latched on trellis structures. I have always grown peas in my garden.
These are shelling peas. The pods can range in size from four to 15-centimeters long and about one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half centimeters wide. Each pod contains between two and 10-peas. In general, shelling pea plants yield about a half-cup of peas per plant.
Peas are packed with nutrition – high in protein and fiber.
This season’s peas are from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, a source I have used for many years. Johnny’s Selected seeds is a privately held, employee-owned organic seed producer in Winslow, Maine. Johnny’s offers hundreds of varieties of organic vegetable, herb, flower, fruit and farm seeds, along with all sorts of gardening supplies and accessories.
Out in the vegetable garden, Matthew cleans and rakes the large center bed for peas. We plant them in this bed surrounded with trellis fencing.
The bed is all prepped. Ryan and Matthew discuss which side will be dedicated to edible pods and which side will have shelling peas.
Matthew starts by digging a shallow furrow in the soil using a hoe. The furrows don’t have to be deep – two inches will work nicely.
The pea seeds are hard, wrinkled, and inedible.
The types of peas are written on large markers and placed at the edge of the bed.
Matthew drops the seeds into the furrow about one to two-inches apart.
Here, one can see the seeds well-placed in the furrow. Sow pea seeds four to six weeks before the last spring frost, when soil temperatures reach 45-degrees Fahrenheit.
Once all the seeds are in the ground, Matthew uses the back of a soft rake to cover them.
Nearby, this year’s fava bean bed is also cleaned and raked. In my garden, I always practice crop rotation. This is the practice of planting different crops sequentially on the same plot of land to improve soil health, optimize nutrients in the soil, and combat pest and weed pressure. Last year, this bed was used for kale.
Ryan uses Johnny’s Bed Preparation Rake to make furrows in the bed.
Another marker is used to indicate what crop and variety is planted.
These are fava beans, Vicia faba. Fava bean pods grow on bushy plants with several stems, reaching two to four feet tall.
Here they are shelled. They have a nutty taste and a buttery texture.
Matthew drops the seeds in the furrows making sure there is ample space in between them to grow. This is called direct sowing, or planting seeds in the garden, rather than starting seeds indoors earlier and transplanting them outside. Some crops do better planted directly into the ground. These plants won’t experience the stress of transplanting and will not need time to adjust to their new growing conditions.
Matthew fills about a third of the bed with fava beans. And do you know… Fava beans are also nitrogen-fixers? They improve soil quality by adding nitrogen.
The seeds are planted at least four or five inches apart.
After dropping all the seeds, Matthew follows behind and pushes each seed about two inches into the ground with his finger.
And then the furrows are backfilled and the area is raked. A marker is also placed where planting ended. The gardening season is here!
Spring officially starts tomorrow and I already have a busy list of projects planned for my farm.
I'm always looking for ways to improve my gardens. I love planting interesting perennials that add texture, growth and beauty throughout the year. I also enjoy arranging large groups of certain plantings to create borders and appealing displays. Yesterday, my outdoor grounds crew planted Mugo pines along the edge of my pinetum. Mugo pines are conifers with dark green needles on dense branches. They're slow growing and mature to a size of five feet tall by 10-feet wide. I am also expanding the garden for more evergreens. Spring planting is underway!
Enjoy these photos.
Mugo pines are popular and interesting evergreens. They add texture, color, and pleasing shape to the garden. I nurtured these specimens from bare root cuttings and they’ve done so well these last couple of years. It’s time to plant them in their permanent spots.
Here’s my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, moving a selection of Mugo pines to my pinetum for a border.
Mugo pines, Pinus mugo, are dense shrubs native to mountainous areas in central and southern Europe. The will make a nice border for this garden.
This is my pinetum in summer. It is filled with many different shapes and sizes of evergreens. Over time, this area will fill out more and more.
All the potted pines are unloaded and placed to the side while the area is prepared for planting.
Gardener’s twine and stakes are used to mark the new edge of this bed. The twine also serves as a guide for the motorized sod cutter.
Here’s Phurba cutting the sod around the space. There are different types of sod cutters, but they all essentially cut grass at the roots so entire sections of sod can be removed to expose the bare ground underneath it.
Once the sod is cut, it is rolled up in strips. Doing this right away makes it easier to see where the sod has already been cut.
Here is a section of the bed after the sod is removed.
Phurba works in another area to roll up the sod. I never like to waste anything around the farm. The usable sod will be put in other areas needing grass.
Adan picks up the heavy rolls to fill the wheelbarrow.
The space between each Mugo pine is measured for accuracy. One can also eyeball the distance – four to five feet depending on established plants nearby. They all need adequate room to grow.
Holes are dug twice as wide as the root balls, but no deeper. Once in the hole, the top of the root ball should be a half-inch higher than the soil surface.
We’ve had a lot of rain lately, so the soil is quite moist and soft.
I always say, “if you eat, so should your plants.” Use fertilizer specifically formulated to help transplant survival and increase water and nutrient absorption. Pasang drops a generous handful of fertilizer into the hole and mixes the granules with the existing soil
Then using a hori hori knife he scarifies the roots of the specimen. Scarifying stimulates root growth. Essentially one cuts up small portions of the root ball to loosen the roots and create beneficial injuries. This helps the plant become established more quickly in its new environment.
Pasang also uses his hands to tease the bottom roots.
The plant is placed into the hole at the proper height – the nicest side faces out to the carriage road.
Always be careful to plant at the right depth. Planting too deep can kill any shrub or tree.
Finally, it’s backfilled. After putting a new shrub or tree into the ground, be sure to keep it slightly moist for its first year as it takes root.
Mugo pines are low-maintenance and highly resilient to various weather conditions. I’ll share more photos of this pinetum project in another blog.
A big project to restore a little pond on my farm is almost complete.
Restoring the health of a pond is very important. It improves the quality of the pond's water, supports aquatic life, and promotes a clean and balanced ecosystem. I began this project about a year ago with the removal of several large and unstable trees. The next step was to dredge as much of the pond silt as possible - decaying plants, dirt, old leaves, and other debris that had accumulated and settled at the bottom. After the cleaning phase, the pond walls were reinforced with huge rocks and boulders and the spillway was repaired. Here's the first of several blogs showing how it was all done.
Enjoy these photos.
This old pond is located on the edge of one of my hay fields, not far from a grove of beautiful weeping willow trees I planted when I moved to my farm. I’ve long wanted to restore this pond and make it cleaner, prettier and better for visiting wildlife.
A year ago, I began taking out the dead trees from in and around the pond. My outdoor grounds crew secured ropes to the logs so they could be pulled out.
One by one, the dead trees and all the limbs and branches were removed.
Just pulling out these trees made the pond look so much better.
The trees were all put through the chipper to make wood chips.
However, the pond was still murky and filled with decades of silt and other debris on the pond floor.
A pump was set up to help separate the water from the silt and empty the pond for cleaning.
A huge tractor and loader was used to clear a path, so silt could be removed and placed outside the pond.
The exact make-up of the silt, or sludge, in a pond depends on the location and the variety of plants that are around the water’s edge. When there is too much, it depletes the pond of oxygen.
Wood and steel mats are placed on the path so the tractor can work as close to the pond as possible.
Juan is an excellent tractor operator. He is able to maneuver the equipment in tight areas safely and efficiently.
This is a silt fence, a temporary sediment control barrier that keeps any removed silt from getting into other sensitive areas.
Separated water pumped out bypasses this area and goes to the clean streams beyond.
Here is one of the giant hoses that funnel the water out of the pond.
Smaller machinery is used to transport the silt away from the pond. Packed with nutrients, the silt will eventually be recycled back into the soil here at my farm.
This process took a few weeks. It is important not to disturb any wildlife or dig too deep. It should bot be dredged deeper than the clay layer which acts as a barrier preventing any water seepage into the soil.
This shows the pond a couple weeks later.
Other debris from the bottom of the pond is removed.
Here, one can see the bottom and debris that has been in the pond for years.
And here is a section of the pond after so much of the dredging is complete. It looks so much better already, but the project isn’t done yet. There’s so much more to be done to bolster and beautify the pond edge and repair the old spillway.
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