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The lingering childhood memory of bowls of bright green smoldering peas – well buttered, devoured by everyone – gives the impetus to plant them each spring. Vivid sensory memory blocks the harsh truth about growing peas; they are a lot of work. Shelling peas fresh from the garden are hard to find and when you do, chances are they are expensive. Really, I think growing peas borders on religion. Beans, on the other hand, require little effort to plant and grow; all you have to do is plant, forage, and gather.
The peas grab hold of you and don’t let go until the harvest is over, demanding a lot of your thinking and attention along the way. Usually, they are the first thing to enter, early.
How early? Well it depends on the weather. Will they germinate? Is the ground warm enough? Pretty dry? Will it still snow? My dad wanted them planted before his birthday, April 23, and more often than not he was successful. He soaked his pea seeds in a coffee can filled with water for half a day, leading to the rite of immersing them in the ground, setting in motion a long trail of rituals that dominated garden life and food. on the table through mid-July.
If I remember correctly, the polka dot fence rose before the peas entered. carry. Then a row of peas planted on each side, rows about 5 inches apart, peas a few inches apart from each other. Planted firmly in the ground an inch deep, tamped down with the head of the hoe. Always the same.
Shortness of breath witnessed their germination period: would they or not? Then signs of earth cracking along the row, like a miniature earthquake. A few days later, they arrived, their pairs of first leaves looking like little green caps. Like my father, they wasted no time getting to work, and in no time their greedy tendrils reached the thread, clinging to life, twisting in circles.
Being a cool-weather spring crop, they always looked so fresh, so promising. They climbed to the top of a fence in no time, erupted into a tumultuous bloom, giving way to a hedge of dangling pea pods.
I still see that old white enamel bail-handle bucket walk into the porch, full of peas, to peel and bake or freeze.
Picking was a job, a lot of bending over, gauging the roundness of each pod, then pulling it out of the vine with just enough pull, being careful not to knock the entire plant off the ground. A measured fight. Bucket after bucket arrived in about month of the pea season. An abundance of wealth, tempered by the realization of the time and effort necessary to peel them and bring them to the table.
As children we hated having to help with the bombing. The pods are difficult to open, the peas bounce all over the place, and the job can take hours. Yet we were also proud to have them, and very happy to eat them, especially in the winter, when a bag of peas came out of the freezer.
Records have been retained. How many buckets were collected and when. How many pints have been frozen. What a fateful day the last package was appreciated.
In my opinion, no other market gardening evokes so much effort, so many rituals and so much family cooperation as the annual devotion of peas. I’m doing it alone now, but somehow I still think of “the pea pageantry,” as EB White called it, and we’re all here, as a family, doing it together.
Suzanne Lupien lives, writes and cultivates in Vershire.
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