Peas not war

October 01, 2024

our first few flowers and pods on our pea plants

This has been our first year properly trying to grow things. Last spring, we planted about a dozen broccoli with a half hearted no dig attempt, and to be fair, they were almost ready to harvest when we had to spend a week abroad for work, and we returned to find our poor broccoli heavily munched by wildlife, and covered in slug goop. We laughed it off and managed to salvage one, saying we would plant some more, but the rest of the spring, summer and winter disappeared from us.

Inspired by Paul MacCready - who really deserves his own post - our entire goal for our first year of growing food (2024) was to fail as fast as possible and learn from as many mistakes as we are able to make in this short time. I truly believe we achieved this. My biggest takeaways are:

Plant peas and beans everywhere Plant nasturtium and marigold everywhere Let lettuce bolt. When it reaches about 4ft, feed it to the chickens. No other treat has ever had them quite as excited. Seed trays are a nice idea, but it’s executive dysfunction roulette as to whether or not I’ll ever replant them when they’re ready On the other hand, old cardboard boxes make great seed starters, and feel easier to replant seedlings Raised beds do not work for us (right now) Cover all bare soil with mulch or straw to prevent tilling the same area over and over

As per the first point above, to get to the point of this post, the best thing I did this year was plant sugarsnap peas outside on a whim. I say on a whim, because at the time I had this weird block in my head about only growing things from seed I had started myself or it was cheating(??? wtf brain), and I got these peas as little sprouts from Dobbies (‘oh look db aren’t these cute? We buy at least two packs of sugarsnaps a week, apparently peas are nitrogen fixers, maybe we could just give these a go’ etc) and snuggled them up nice and safe in a tray in the polytunnel and as with the rest of the plants, sort of freaked out when they started to grow. It’s so hard to explain if you’ve grown up with a green thumb, or if you’ve never grown anything from seed or seedling, but for me, I have been quite honestly surprised any time anything works. It feels as though it’s happening against all odds and what on Earth do you do now that it’s… growing?

Let me explain it another way, because sometimes if I don’t make my point clearly, I’m sure these posts read like the rambling of a crazy person: Sometimes when I’m doing a harder climb, and jump for a hold that I’m sure I can’t reach, my hand stretches out expecting to fall through the air, but somehow makes contact, and no one is more surprised than I am to discover that I have not fallen. How am I to finish this climb when I hadn’t planned to get more than halfway up? And yet, often I manage to finish the climb, new level unlocked, +5 courage +2 confidence, +3 logic!

Early stage homesteading feels the exact same way. Every time something lives, I’m more surprised than if it does not. Anyway, my peas got to the point where they were rapidly outgrowing their little box, and the barbecue skewers I had offered them to climb. They were starting to droop and we had planted very little outside at the time, certainly nothing straight into the ground, just a few broccoli and cauliflower in a raised bed. I reasoned with myself that they were dying inside anyway, outside could be no worse, and decided to pull up a random patch of grass with the cultivator, replacing it with my peas.

All of a sudden, I had done the scariest thing and broken some imaginary block I didn’t realise even existed. As a result, in the coming weeks I planted loads of other things, and we noticed that everything beside the peas and nasturtium had thrived. We do not have beautiful, light, well worked soil either, we have super tough clay like soil which retains a lot of moisture to the point where our carrots couldn’t grow down because it was so dense! Not only have the peas and nasturtium have changed the entire soil profile where we’ve planted them, but we used both for snacks and salads every day for months. It’s easy to forget that being able to eat them was the original point!

We had definitely read about peas being great, but there’s some sort of cognitive switch that happens when you see something work in practice, compared to reading about it. Like when you try front end engineering for the first time and watch your changes happening in real time, after a year of crying over abstract concepts. In a nutshell, if I could go back a year and give myself advice, it would be grow some fucking peas and thank me later.

(aj)