Would someone please plant peas? A lot of peas, so many that you can't eat them all and decide to package them securely and send them to me care of The Canberra Times? Because it is two years since I ate a home-grown pea, and I am pining.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
There are fresh peas to be bought, of course. Sadly, most fresh peas are the same ''travel well, crop well'' varieties that go into frozen peas, so they taste pretty much the same even if the texture is very slightly better.
I've never had a successful crop of peas. Yes, our peas have cropped - except for the years when the seed didn't germinate; or the seed did germinate but was eaten by snails; or the seedlings were eaten by bower birds; or the flowers were eaten by bower birds; or the peas were eaten by bower birds: or the whole four rows was eaten by a single wallaby overnight, or crushed beneath the feet of an orphaned kangaroo we were raising. Roos are not called ''macropods'' or ''big feet'' for nothing.
The only years we had enough peas maturing on the bushes for more than three or four meals had early hot summers alternating wet and dry i.e. perfect for powdery mildew. Powdery mildew-infected pea plants collapse. Most old-fashioned pea varieties are susceptible to powdery mildew, which is why peas are best planted from July - September in southern Australia, so they can mature in cool weather. If summer decides to arrive early for a fortnight then packs its bags and vanishes till Christmas, you may well be left with a gorgeous crop of powdery mildew.
If you are nervous about growing peas, plant snow peas. Most varieties are mildew resistant, and snow peas crop better in hot weather and for a longer time. But genuine peas, fresh from the pod, simmered in the smallest possible amount of water till they turn a more vivid green, then eaten just as thy are - it's one of the foods of paradise. Add butter, or tiny bits of fried bacon or scatter peas with cheese on pizza - perfection.
The best way to get a large crop of peas in a small space is to grow climbing peas, like Telephone Pea, also known as ''Climbing Alderman'', though all well-grown peas need staking or they'll fall over with the weight of pea pods or even when it rains. There are new varieties, like Willow and Princess, which are said to be mildew resistant, though I haven't tasted them.
Plant pea seeds into well-fed soil - the plot you grew big green lettuces in last summer is perfect - or feed lightly till the plants are knee high, then stop feeding as too much tucker may give you lots of green growth and few flowers. Frost will damage the flowers but more will grow so don't bother unduly.
Pick when the pods are on the small side of fat. Don't be greedy and wait till they get even fatter, as they will lose their sweetness and become floury. Mulch to stop mildew spores from splashing up onto the vines, and water only in the morning, so the vines can dry during the day. Cover with netting if you suspect you have pea-loving birds nearby.
If your peas vanish anyway, the chief suspect is probably the kids - somehow fresh peas and snow peas just seem to disappear when a child passes the garden. Taste a small pea straight from the pod and you'll see why.
A drought - assuming you still have water for the garden - is an excellent time to grow peas. Lots of peas. It is also a very good time to give any surplus peas away, or swap them perhaps for a bag of limes, or a few of our very shiny home-grown avocados.
This week I have:
- Managed to kill a gorgeous potted cyclamen by watering it while my husband also watered it and the surplus water collected in the ''cache pot'' - a useful ornamental pot that hides boring plastic pots. Cyclamen do not like sitting in water. They rot.
- Picked six of the biggest, shiniest avocados I've ever seen. Late frost and blossom-loving sugar gliders mean there's little fruit on the trees, but every one of them is gorgeous. (This is why some growers who hope for first prize at the show pick off all but one pumpkin from the vine or leave only a single apple from the tree: fewer fruit usually means bigger fruit).
- Watched the Wife of Bath rose put out two new blooms despite minus-three nighttime temperatures and nothing above 12 degrees during the day. Why, when she's never flowered in winter before and every other rose is sulking? I've no idea.
- Spent far too long laughing at the two lyrebirds still chasing each other under the citrus and around the camellias squawking like a pair of operatic hens.
- Wondered who had pinched the cumquats while I was away and then discovered the currawongs were flying down, grabbing one and flapping off again, and the wallaby has managed to stand on tiptoes and tail to eat another half dozen a day too.
- Muttered at the camellias that should have opened their buds by now. I think they are waiting for rain. I am waiting too ...
