Get Prepping and Plant Peas!

Well for those that read my article last month here is a continuation of that inspiration. Hopefully you’ve already started thinking about what you want to grow in your garden this year. So now I’m telling you it’s go time.
Time to direct sow peas in the ground. If your ground is frozen solid or buried in snow your just going to have to wait. Just keep an eye on it and the next time it warms up and dries a bit, get it prepped. If your ground is nice and crumbly and you are beginning to see other plants sprout up, chances are you can prepare your beds and start to sow some cold tolerant plants. When I’m talking prepped I mean using a digging fork to loosen the soil, not necessarily turning it but fluffing it. It is better to maintain the soil structure than to churn it up. I have several garden beds that don’t have any frames around them, I’m just working with the earth and shaping it how I like it. I will insert the digging fork as deep as I can go and give it a wiggle to loosen the soil, repeating over the entire space desired. Then I’ll use a garden rake to smooth out the edges and pull them into the bed to make it taller. When you use raised beds of any sort they are able to warm up quicker in the spring allowing our plants to do better when it’s cold out. Raised beds also have increased drainage that can help reduce pathogen outbreaks. I’ll then top dress the whole thing with compost. Now it’s ready for direct sowing. I’ll also start prepping other beds that will take greens transplants in another month or so. Broadcasting seeds is another way to get stuff growing as well. Granted they won’t sprout up in neat little lines but it’s not labor intensive (bonus) and with a little practice you can get a good spacing of seeds throughout the bed. The bonus of starting things outside now is that you will get rainfall to do your watering for you. It rarely dries up during these remaining winter months and early spring. Mustards, arugula, mache, and lettuces are pretty hardy when it gets cold. I have all of those in the ground and covered with garden cloth. Two weeks ago they were buried in some of that snow we call sierra cement. So as the snow melted off I was surprised to see delicious micro greens when I peaked under the cloth. They are patiently waiting for warmer weather to put on some green growth enough for me to begin harvesting. You’d be surprised at how things can still grow when it seems to be so cold out.