I’m very excited by the arrival of four types of pea, all new to me but none of them, so far as I know, very new to theworld.  It’s for one of the Heritage Seed Library’s members’ experiments – comparing old and new varieties, in this case of tall peas.  This is a bit ambitious for us as our garden is quite exposed and an a hill, but we should be able to arrange some wigwams which I think will be sturdier than trying to grow rows.

The varieties are Clarke’s Beltony Blue, Hugh’s Huge, Simpson’s Special and Alderman…as far as I’m aware Alderman is actually quite an old variety and the notes do say “modern varieties of pea are increasingly bred to be small and compact”, so I suppose that HDRA/Garden Organic didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter! There is  quite a bit of information in the instructions so I’ll have plenty to occupy me until sowing them in, probably, March, as the instructions suggest. To whet my own appetite, some photos from last year of another tall Heritage Seed Library pea:

Victorian Purple Podded Peas in flower, "fruit" and drying for seed

Less thrilling in that I wish I didn’t have too much to contribute is the slug and snail survey – not interviewing gastropods, as my better half has just suggested, but observing our population of different makes and models and reporting on control methods.

We’ve just begun fillng a second pot with dried, crushed eggshells to store until the spring, when we’ll get through a lot of them. Copper tape around pots, “moats” and sharp gravel have also come in to play in the past. And you haven’t really lived life to the full until you’ve spent a damp spring evening or three strolling the not-so-extensive grounds armed with a pointy stick, to the soundtrack of seedlings tumbling to the ground as their defenceless little stalks are bitten off in their prime.

I attempted to take part in the bee survey last year but much as I like them it didn’t work out. I don’t think there’s any danger of not having much to say this time round though!