Cold Snap Peas

The kids and I constructed a mini-greenhouse this week for snap peas. (Figure 3/13/09) They wanted to see some results soon, and with this recent cold snap, I needed to improvise. I wet two or three paper towels with warm water and placed the snap pea seeds between them and them sealed them inside a glass canister and placed it in the kitchen window. To help add heat and moisture, I add my green tea bags each morning and evening to the canister and reseal. In three days we had growth which pleased the kiddos immensely. There's not much room in the garden, but we may add a second row of peas along the fence, since the peas outside haven't sprouted in this chilly weather. Guess I could just stick them into window boxes and let them trail also. We'll see what the little sprouts decide to do with their little sprouts (:

We have radishes, spinach, carrots, pansies, early onions and peas growing in the veggie beds already - in fact, we've been covering the rows with biodegradable tarps at night. They will double later as landscape fabric to block out weeds in the new garden beds - since they biodegrade within one year, we'll be able to till what is left into the soil next season. The onions are a bit of an experiment this year - I've always had alliums scattered throughout my flower garden to help with pests, so I'm doing the same in the veggie garden this year. I'm using them as perimeter plants and sowing them pretty closely. Friends of mine have pulled the 2nd and 3rd for green onions, leaving the 1st and 4th and so on, giving them room to grow later in the season. We shall see...