gardening tip: plant more peas

I went to pick up some donated plants for Project Eden a few weeks ago and, in the process, made a new friend. Elizabeth is a master gardener and was donated a flat of extra heirloom tomato and pepper starts to the Project Eden Gardens. She was kind enough to give me a tour of her expansive and impressive gardens while I was at her house, which made for a lovely morning. I came away with some veggies for Project Eden, some perennials for our garden, and some great gardening tips and ideas.

Elizabeth had planted snap peas around all of her (many) trees. Why hadn’t I ever thought of that? The peas like the shade, and they can use the tree to climb up. As soon as I got home, I found some pea seeds and started planting around the trees and some shaded areas of the fence. Now, a few weeks later, we have peas coming up throughout the yard. We’re maximizing otherwise unused space, plus peas are nitrogen fixers so they’re helpful wherever we plant them anyway. Win, win!

I planted some radishes and carrots in some other shady beds around the house, so those would work too. I just keep trying to turn increasing amounts of grass into food. Grant said we should go around and do this at parks and other public spaces as a sort of guerrilla gardening tactic, so be on the lookout!