Blooming!

Pineapple Sage, edible blossoms

When I was buying some plants last month I picked up a couple of Pineapple Sage and a Lemon Verbena plant. Our winters are too cold for them so they are living in my bedroom, in front of the big window that looks into the greenhouse. The Pineapple Sage is blooming. I love the bright lipstick red flowers; they are edible and taste delicious. A fruity, flower, pineapple flavor. I picked a stem of them today and tossed them on my salad, yum!

Pineapple Sage blooming

Here's a shot of the herb plants in my bedroom. You can see into the greenhouse and the window box planted with purple pansies out there. The other herb plant in the bedroom is a basil. There are actually several plants in the pot, the original one that grew all summer and a couple of babies that sprouted up last month. While I was gone on vacation the basil had bloomed and made some seed before I got home and pruned it back. I doubt they will manage to live all winter, but it's fun to have them for a bit longer than just outdoors.

Sugar Snap Pea blooms

Outdoors the Sugar Snap Peas have put out their first blossoms. I don't know how well they are going to do, our first winter storm is trying to roll in and we could get a little snow.

Don't forget to check back for Seedy Saturday! I've got a really great free seed giveaway for you!

Planting Peas

Of course I love peas of all kinds; I've probably told you that a few times already. This years roster so far is Sugar Snap, Sweet Magnolia, Bleushokker, Early Perfection and Mammoth Melting Sugar. Yesterday afternoon I planted the Melting Sugars in the bed where the beans were. I took out the shorter trellis of weld wire and replaced it with a chicken wire trellis down the center of the bed.

Soil prep for pea planting

After I put in the brackets to hold the trellis poles I ran a string between them and dug a trench down the center of the bed. Here you can see I've dumped in about 6 inches of rabbit manure. If you don't have manure compost will also work. Then I leveled the bed, covering the manure with about 2-3 inches of soil. Then I covered the whole bed with several inches of sifted compost.

Planting Peas

Next I used my triangular hoe to make a small trench on each side of the trellis after I put it up. I set the pea seeds every couple of inches in the furrow then covered them with about 1/2 - 1 inche of soil and watered the bed well. It's also been raining off and on since I planted them so they should be coming up pretty quickly, usually about a week this time of the year.

I've written an article about peas, How to Grow Peas and a few years ago I grew six varieties of peas and wrote 6 Pea Varieties on Trial.