First snap pea planting

[oxbowfarm]

Put in our first snap pea planting of the year. Adding in a twist with a seed or two of oats in each plug, I had read about the Nordell's doing that in one of their Cultivating Questions articles, I tried it in a direct seeded planting last year and it seemed to work well, kept the peas more upright and easier to pick. Variety here is Sugar Ann.

[templeton]

nice roots.
what sort of plug trays do you use?
And do you do a full grow out under the polytunnel? No mildew or disease issues?
{I ask since I'm just about to try a snowpea growout in autumn/winter, and was wondering if ishould plant in my greenhouse)
T

[oxbowfarm]

Mar 12, 2012 6:27:01 GMT -5 templeton said:

nice roots.
what sort of plug trays do you use?

They are 50 cell sheets, standard 1020 size. Don't know if the 1020 is standard in your hemisphere?

Mar 12, 2012 6:27:01 GMT -5 templeton said:

And do you do a full grow out under the polytunnel? No mildew or disease issues?
{I ask since I'm just about to try a snowpea growout in autumn/winter, and was wondering if ishould plant in my greenhouse)
T

I don't grow them out in the tunnel, in theory we will move this tunnel off of them in about 3-4 weeks and they will just be normal outdoor peas. The idea here is just to get a jump on the season with the plug transplanting and protected early growth. My market is basically wide open in March-May and I am working to fill some very unfilled demand for produce in that time-slot. In June all the CSA farms start and the competition literally triples, at that point I hope to already have summer crops coming in tomatoes,zucchini, beans, etc as the market is glutted with nice greens. We don't do CSA and I hope to never have to do one, this gives us a lot of flexibility to shoot for the "get there firstest with the mostest" strategy.

Don't get me wrong, not knocking CSA, it just isn't my cup of tea.

[12540dumont]

Ox, Leo loves Sugar Ann. I just read a thread about planting them with an oat in the book, Weed Control Without Poison. It seems that old time farmers used to plant peas and oats together to run their diary cows on, early in the season. I imagine those may have been fodder peas?

Do you put up trellis?

[richardw]

Just looking at the stone you have,man you could make some lovely stone walls for a heat sink green house.

How easy is it to move your tunnel?? and do you plant the tomatoes,zucchini & beans in it once its been moved.

[oxbowfarm]

The oats are the trellis, in theory. It seemed to work last year vs the oatsless peas.

The stones are definitely one of the challenging aspects of this soil. I am still learning how to get the most out of it. They make direct seeding things much more difficult, so I transplant a lot of things when I can. They also make cultivating small things very challenging, the transplanting helps with that as well.

On the plus side, all the stone makes a silt loam soil drain like a sand so it is easy to get onto and more forgiving for working it a little wet while holding a lot more fertility than a soil this well drained normally would. Trying to find the best systems to maximize the advantages of this soil and minimize the disadvantages.

Richard, once I get them un-anchored and up on the wheels I can usually roll one by myself but it is a job-of-work. With two people pushing it goes a lot easier. My sister-in-law gave us this fancy video camera that I will take a video of moving it next time. Then I'll have to figure out how to post that on Youtube or something. This house with the peas, beets, and carrots is going to have the super-early tomatoes. Zukes and beans will be in a different one.

[raymondo]

Oats with peas. Like it. Must try it next spring. I've got sugar Ann in as my autumn crop. They are just beginning to show little pods. I hope they're as sweet as the advertising blurbs claim. I love sweet snaps. I've taken to sowing in trays too. I use Hiko trays, the 40 cell size, and like them.

[templeton]

Ray, when did you sow your Sugar Annes if they are already podding?
T

[ottawagardener]

I was wondering what you were growing with them. Let me know how the oats/peas combo works. I know people sell that combo as a cover crop. I plan on sowing some early peas in the next week or so. Excited!

[templeton]

Presumably the oats will only work with relatively short cultivars?

And is there no problem with competition?

[oxbowfarm]

I pretty much only use short cultivars Sugar Ann is my favorite, I also use Sugar Sprint and Cascadia. Cascadia is about the tallest variety we use. I'm hoping to get some of "the Old Oat" from Michel and see how that baby holds up to a taller pea.

I'm sure there is some competition for nutrients but oats are a relatively light feeder, their highest requirement is for nitrogen and the peas shouldn't be a competitor for nitrogen at all. I imagine if you were dry farming them and hit a dry spell the partnership would break down and the oats would out-compete the peas but we irrigate so its not a factor. Usually in pea growing weather water is not a factor.

I never trellis peas which is why I stick with the short cultivars. I know a lot of farmers trellis but its always seemed like such a hassle and the taller varieties didn't seem to yeild so much better to justify the labor, JMO. But I did like how upright they were last year up on the oats, and at the end of the day I can just till the whole shebang in or scythe it off and feed it to the cows.

[raymondo]

Mar 17, 2012 7:40:04 GMT -5 templeton said:

Ray, when did you sow your Sugar Annes if they are already podding?
T

5th Feb I sowed them, just after I cleaned out the previous lot of peas (Capucijner). They are pretty quick, which is a must here because it gets too cold for good peas. The plants themsleves manage alright but flowers and pods do not. I won't sow peas again until September.

[templeton]

6 weeks, nice work. you must have your timing down.
T

[oxbowfarm]

UPDATE

Here they are yesterday in flower. The house is moved one length north and has the early tomatoes in it now.

[raymondo]

Looking good.